Alix Michaels: She Voice

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  0:02  
The sound of podcast. The show about podcast and broadcast starts now.

Matt Cundill  0:13  
I had to check back into the archives because it was sometime in 2020 when Alex Michaels reached out to me on Facebook and said, When are we doing the show? The show she was referring to was this one. We had been swapping radio stories for many years over coffee, ravioli and beer, but never behind a microphone. I saw her at the Winnipeg radio reunion. Our eyes met from across the floor, and we knew it was time. Alex has been a long time Winnipeg broadcaster going back to the early 90s. She left for southern adventures in the late 90s, before returning home in the 21st Century, before returning home the following millennium. Alex is currently the afternoon drive host at hot 100.5 in Winnipeg. You'll enjoy radio tales from places like Minnesota, New Hampshire, the Carolinas, and Winnipeg, where we attempt and fail to try to understand its existence. And now Alex Michaels joins me from Winnipeg. This is why I don't have to spend much time at the reunion talking to you, because we can just do it later on the podcast. Exactly. What did you love about that Winnipeg radio reunion? Oh

Alix Michaels  1:28  
my God, that's the first thing. Hey, just that's I was saying that a lot like, oh my god, oh my god. Just seeing the people that I hadn't seen for so long, that was really the most exciting part. And then, you know, some of the stories popping up and that sort of thing, and remembering some of those stories too, being reminded of, oh yeah, I did that, or oh yeah, I was a part of that, or so that was really exciting. Seeing you again after all these years,

Matt Cundill  1:56  
I had a few moments where I ran into people that I worked with in other markets, because Winnipeg, and a lot of people don't know this is really been a launch pad for so many careers. People come and they start here, and then they leave and go elsewhere. And, you know, there was so much star power in that room that a lot of cities the same size as Winnipeg just couldn't muster put together if they tried. Yeah,

Alix Michaels  2:21  
if you were a radio junkie, you grew up on radio. There was voices and people there that you're like, Oh, my God, I grew up with this. I grew up. You hear a lot of the, oh, the bit I remember you guys did this. You remember that, like, you know, those stories you remember that made me want to make you get into radio, you know, some of those shenanigans they would do. What

Matt Cundill  2:39  
was the one person you were most surprised to see, or brought back a lot of memories, or just made your blood get, you know, pump harder and get excited. I'd

Alix Michaels  2:48  
say for a surprise, it would be brother Jake, because I heard so many stories about brother Jake. Now, I kind of started at city after he left, so I heard all the stories, and I obviously heard some of the bits, but just seeing him in person. It's kind of like a fan moment, and going, man, he looks the same, just the old guys, just the older guys that you don't see a lot of because, you know, you're Don Percy. I mean, look at Don Percy still going, at what, 82 or something like that. 87 use me. I missed it. See, yeah, I didn't want to age him too much, you know, way to go, yeah.

Matt Cundill  3:19  
And I actually got to have lunch with him the day before, and I'm telling you, he is still firing on all pistons. And does, yeah, he turned me. He said, Matt, how you doing? I'm doing great. Oh, that's too bad. You went to high school just north of Winnipeg. Am I

Alix Michaels  3:40  
right? I did? Yeah, I grew up in Winnipeg. Yeah, grew up, you know, St Andrews Selkirk. You know Selkirk is where it went, where I graduated. Did you know that? Or did you think I was in? Oh,

Matt Cundill  3:50  
no, I knew. I knew that. I've got that listed here. We do a lot of research, and we have private investigators

Alix Michaels  3:54  
who I know you do, yeah, yeah. Selkirk gang out there, graduated,

Matt Cundill  3:59  
let's put it. How'd you land your first radio job? Oh, boy,

Alix Michaels  4:03  
you know what? Let me tell you. Let me take you back. So I'm not one of those people that went, Hey, I want to this is what I want to do. I want to do radio. I got out of school and I didn't want to go to college or whatever university, because I didn't know really what I wanted to do. So I kind of wanted to find out maybe more of what I wanted to do. And I remember, I was looking at the one ads, because I'm going to take a year off, you know, do some work or something. And there was an ad for radio. It was a one day a week, course, you know, learn Radio. I'm like, Yeah, okay, let me go check that out. And it was this one guy, sorry, I can't remember his name because it was so long ago, but he had been in radio a long time ago. He's one of these old guys, and he had his day. He was a big celebrity, big star, but unfortunately, he didn't save a lot of money. So as he got older, he needed to make some money. So this was kind of a way for him to make some money. So I remember learning some, you know, to do radio on the old reel to reel. He had all this. Old equipment, but was able to get a tape. And as you know, back in the day, getting that tape, the demo tape, was the big deal. So I was able to kind of get a demo tape out of this one day a week, course, and then I shopped it around, and I was able to get into Brandon, of all places. I was there for about eight months, and gave Ross windrows a call saying, hey, he got spot, and, yeah, I ended up Kansas City, you

Matt Cundill  5:25  
too, huh? Yeah, yeah, in that era. And I'm thinking like early, early, early 90s. I mean, that was where you sent your tapes if you wanted to work for a really, really cool radio station. And you know, that was that was built to win.

Alix Michaels  5:42  
Well, you had the option too of doing overnights, right? You don't have that option to kind of learn on the job. That was the great thing about overnights learning on the job. You know, what better experience than to learn on the job, right? So that was great. But, you know, six hour shifts up per night, did that for a few years. You know, I

Matt Cundill  6:00  
was sending tapes to Ross around the same time 91 there's no job for me, and as it turns out, about a year and a half later, I was working in Montreal. So I want to know what was it like working the all night show in Winnipeg?

Alix Michaels  6:12  
You never knew. Actually, people called you back then there. You didn't realize until you did the shift, there were so many people that actually have jobs overnight and would call you up. The weirdest thing I ever got as far as a call was Dave Mustang from Megadeth. This was about like two or three in the morning. They had played a show in Winnipeg. Somehow this guy had gotten the hotline. Remember the hotlines? Oh yeah, and way to get into the station. He called the hotline, and my hotline is ringing. It's either the boss giving you a shit or, you know, it's somebody

Matt Cundill  6:45  
the wrong number, right? Yeah,

Alix Michaels  6:48  
so Dave Mustang, and I'm like, kind of throwing off. I'm like, is this really him? But so we get to talking. Here's the thing, he wanted me to call his wife, because his wife, he had done an interview. After I talked to him, I did a little interview with him. Guess he called his wife. He mentioned he was with this girl doing an interview. She didn't believe him. I had to call his wife to say, Yeah, I'm Alex. I'm at this radio station in Winnipeg. Yes, I interviewed Dave. She didn't believe me. She told me, basically, F myself. This chick is a black belt, like his wife is a black belt. Anyway. It was this whole weird thing of calling Dave Mustang his wife, and so that was the kind of stuff you would get at, like, three in the morning. You never knew what she'd get. It was awesome, yeah.

Matt Cundill  7:32  
And for those who don't know, I mean, a lot of radio stations are based, by the way, in buildings that are they've always housed radio. And I believe you were at polo park at the time,

Alix Michaels  7:42  
yeah, definitely. So CKY was in the same building, 58 Yeah, 58 Ky, 58 was in the same building too. And the TV station was, it

Matt Cundill  7:53  
owned by Moffitt back then, yeah, I think it was, yeah, for sure. It was, and sold right around then too. I recall, I

Alix Michaels  7:59  
think it was, there was definitely a sale in there too. Yeah. When did you leave Winnipeg? I left Winnipeg in 98 the first time, because I did come back, but I left in 98 so are you working at Citi all that time? Yeah, yeah, I worked at Citi all that time. So when I left, I was doing mid days when I left. So I got up to mid days. And the reason I kind of left, I guess I left around 97 I was doing TV as well. So I was working on MTN at the time, it was a TV show called the scene that I put together. So I would do radio and I would do TV at the same time. And that was pretty challenging, I got to tell you. So they said, Hey, tell you what. We'll give you an hour show on TV. So I went, Okay, so I quit radio. I do the hour. I lasted one hour show, and then they cut it back to just like, cut ins and stuff like that. So it was a way of getting me out of radio technically that they did. So I did TV for a little bit with them, and then I left to go do radio in the States.

Matt Cundill  8:57  
Okay, so help me out here. What was Mtn? It was

Alix Michaels  9:00  
like a TV station was where Peter Young did sports, they did news. It was the Manitoba Television Network. And again, it was owned by locals, the Craigs, so it was another locally owned station. And I did a segment called the scene. So I would go out and I would do, you know, the entertainment, concerts, you know, all the events in the city, film them, put them together, write them up, do interviews and stuff. And then we would do these, the segment twice, twice a day. Now I

Matt Cundill  9:27  
remember, so the Craigs also had a channel out in Calgary and Edmonton. I was in Edmonton at the time, and yeah, you're right. Like around 97 these, these TV stations began to come on the air, and we were getting busier on the dial. And, you know, eventually, four or five years later, I mean, RAID, there were more radio licenses that got handed out as well. So there was, there was lots of work out there. So it was

Alix Michaels  9:50  
like MTN was before a channel, really, yeah, and then yeah, spawned into that, for sure.

Matt Cundill  9:55  
I think the family was from Brandon originally. I think so too.

Alix Michaels  9:59  
Yeah, they. Definitely owned some stations in that. Yeah, yeah, the Craigs.

Matt Cundill  10:02  
So your, your time in Winnipeg ended in 98 and, yeah, how, why and where did

Alix Michaels  10:08  
you go? Well, you know, I really wanted to try to break the American market. I really wanted to try, and I ended up doing it. I ended up doing it now, I did have to marry, marry American. Long story on that won't bore you with that, but I ended up working in several radio stations in the States. I was in Minneapolis, which was, I guess, my biggest market, was 17th market in the States. I was on the air there. When 911 happened. I was doing mid days. I was on right after the morning show. So that was an experience, let me tell you.

Matt Cundill  10:43  
So you were on a W, l, o, l, is that right? Correct? That's a big radio station.

Alix Michaels  10:47  
Yeah, it was a classic hits they had, they'll get this. They had a 300 Song Playlist. Talk about tight. That's tight, but that was what it was. It was just tight, tight radio, but it was, it was major market radio. That's what it was, yeah,

Matt Cundill  11:01  
competitive as anything. Oh, yeah, I still recall lol was it was a top 40 station, maybe at one point, and had moved off it, and was probably in a war with kdwb, yeah, and stuff like that.

Alix Michaels  11:12  
I think it's a talk station. Now I'm not quite sure what it's becoming, still on the dial, but I don't

Matt Cundill  11:18  
know what it is. I'm going to wind up looking that up. You know that I'm gonna do that. You do that actually, I think 100 point. I think it's K fan. I think it's a sports

Alix Michaels  11:25  
station. Yeah, I've heard of K fan. I didn't know if it's maybe it switched over because k fan was, wasn't K fan on the am dial or so,

Matt Cundill  11:30  
yeah, it moved over. And I think when it moved over to FM, that's where, that's where you go and listen to your Minnesota Vikings these days.

Alix Michaels  11:37  
Got you, yeah? But at one time, it played these classic hits, and I was there. So that was kind of

Matt Cundill  11:43  
interesting, from Minneapolis, where too.

Alix Michaels  11:45  
And then I went down to New Hampshire. So I did New Hampshire. I did Manchester. I was at a stage there, rock, 101, and did some voice tracking, wh, W, H, E, B, did a little voice tracking in Portsmouth. Yeah, yeah, and doing some live shows there, and, yeah, and then I ended up getting to Myrtle Beach. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, South

Matt Cundill  12:08  
kakaaki. So what's the process from going from station to station to station? Was it just, you know, throwing out cassettes and MP threes and hoping for the best? Or was it networking? Was it word of mouth? I tell you

Alix Michaels  12:18  
what. It was interesting. Like, before I got to Myrtle Beach, I applied at different stations. I ended up getting actually, they flew me out to Rochester, New York, to try with this one guy. And that was interesting. I've never they flew me first class and everything. We did a couple air shows together, but it just didn't work out. I didn't end up getting the job. What station is that? God damn, I can't remember. It was on the river. I think it was on the river. It was something with river in it, okay, something with river in it. But then I'm kind of glad that didn't work out, because, you know, snow kind of the same environment. So it was nice to be able to get a job in Myrtle Beach and live at the beach for a little bit, you know? But the process was just talking to people. They seemed to think I had something. All of them, anytime I went really, were Gaga about what I did when I went to Manchester. What kind of sucked is the lawyer there had applied for paperwork for me to work there. They had fired the evening guy. They put me in the evenings. I'm like, Hey, I'm set right, and the lawyer had filed the wrong paperwork. So they ended up having to let me go, because it would have taken another six months or so for this paperwork to go through. So and I couldn't work in that time, so obviously they needed a voice, so that kind of sucked. But then it opened up more doors, and I ended up, you know, getting that paperwork done or wherever. And got to Myrtle Beach and stayed there for a little

Matt Cundill  13:43  
bit. Yeah, I'm so glad you're telling me about this experience, because I saw so many of my friends leave, and I didn't, and I just, I didn't pursue it, and I probably should have, and I wonder how, like, life would have worked out. It's just one of those things. And sometime between, like 98 and 2002 there was just, like, Canadians just pouring south, whether it was for television or it was for radio, there were just jobs. And for whatever reason, Americans love to hire Canadians, it's because we're so nice, I

Alix Michaels  14:15  
guess. I don't know, but, you know, it's hilarious. You know, a couple times getting outed as a Canadian, like, I can kind of get through it without the accents. But I remember when I did a bob Seeger song and I went against the against the wind instead of against the wind. Or no, how do they say it? We say against, right? And I had fed a case, and everybody was like, Oh, you would have, my God, who are you? Where are you from? So there was a little telltale signs you had to kind of weed out of your Canadian vocabulary to kind of fit in. But other than that, so yeah, it was, it was a good experience, and for the most part, there was some crap too, but there always is a radio, you know, and you did some TV down there too. Yeah, I actually worked for Fox, believe it or not. So the gist of this is. They had a show in Charlotte, okay, Charlotte, North Carolina, their big the hub of their station. So in South Carolina, they had kind of a little affiliate in Myrtle Beach. So they wanted to make it more of just a they were playing just a lot of shows, like syndicated shows, right? You tune in to this fox show. So they wanted to have a show that was their own. So they came up with something called not the news, which was kind of what they were doing in Charlotte. It was just called a different thing, but it was getting the funnier news stories and making fun of them and doing some TV and stuff. So I ended up applying for that, and I got it. I was the first host of it. So me and another guy, his name was Greg rolls, his big claim to fame. Fame was winning star church in 1990 whatever. So he was so it was this guy, and yeah, I did that. So I would do my morning show. I do radio for Star 92.1 and then I would do the TV. Would take the TV in the afternoon, and then I would do voice work after that. So it was quite long days, but it was interesting. I guess I can say I did it, but people always ask me, which one I like better? In case you're gonna ask me, radio,

Matt Cundill  16:10  
yeah, I figured, yeah,

Alix Michaels  16:12  
TV's tough, because, you know, you can do a great story. You can, hey, wasn't that? I thought that was a great story. And, well, why did you wear that shirt, though, or, you know, it's more of the look too, eh? What's it

Matt Cundill  16:23  
like working in a beach town? Because all I can think of is, like, you do your shift and then, like, when your shifts over, you're on the beach, and it, it doesn't work out that way, does it? No,

Alix Michaels  16:33  
no. So Myrtle Beach is a huge, huge tourist town, so when it's summertime, you get something like 10 million people coming through. So it's a bit of a challenge. First of all, getting to work, because there's one way, one way out. And yeah, so I find myself not really going to the beach because of so many tourists. I'd go later, you know, in the off season. But yeah, when it's on, it's like, you do your thing, and you get out of town because there's so many tourists, and you get sick of tourists. So yeah, it was, it was a tourist town. Did golf, though, did golf. There was a lot of golf.

Matt Cundill  17:07  
I mean, I always find that in tourist towns, the sales department acts a lot weirder because so much of the business really depends on like bars and restaurants and tourist stuff. Yet those tourists aren't from there and listening to the station most of the year, but you're trying to create so then you get these different promotions that you need to do. You have this sort of different programming flow. So like when it's tourist season, things change

Alix Michaels  17:34  
interesting that you say that a lot of the radio stuff we did, though, never really seemed to cater to the visitors. It was more like the locals, and then the visitors would come. So we always kind of did our own thing. But that thing may have just been different, right? You can have, you know, bar gig on the beach, right? Well, who's not going to come to that anyway? You see people having a party on the, you know, on the beach, you're going to end up going there sort of thing. But I loved it and I didn't at the same time because it was, it was busy. I'm telling you, those summers were

Matt Cundill  18:04  
nuts. I'm sort of thinking about the events driven promotions that that really sort of, yeah,

Alix Michaels  18:10  
yeah, pretty much you were talking about retail too. There's a lot of like, beach wear stores, you know. Have you ever been to Myrtle Beach? I haven't. Oh, man, no. Lot of beach wear stores, a lot of golf, a lot of tourists and a Ferris wheel, that's it, okay? And sand and nice beach and nice beach, yeah, yeah, a lot of Canadians would go there. That was another thing. A lot of Canadians go to

Matt Cundill  18:30  
Myrtle Beach. I don't know now, but yeah, I think those Canadians are taking the year off. I think so.

Alix Michaels  18:34  
I think we've kind of went, Okay, we're good.

Matt Cundill  18:38  
And so what was the decision that prompted you to make a return home. You

Alix Michaels  18:43  
know, it was pretty much family. Yeah, it was about that time. You know, I had kind of done a lot. I've been away for a bit, and I'm an only child, so, you know, it's kind of sometimes on your shoulders to kind of make sure everything's good. So, yeah, it was kind of always in the cards that I was going to come back. But, yeah, I don't know if I came sooner or later, but I guess it was the time. Was the time kind of So, yeah, it worked out, to be honest, my morning show partner actually passed away before I left Myrtle Beach. So yeah, there was, yeah, I was, I worked at Star 92.1 we had the Mitch and Alex, you know, one show. And yeah, sadly, he had passed. So I stayed there for a little bit after he did, and it just Yeah, it wasn't the same. So I ended up passes time to go. I haven't told that story many times because, you know, but it was sad when you have a morning show partner, and maybe people can relate to this. There's so many things that happened in the studio that's only between you and your partner, and you know the in betweens and stuff, and you know, when one's gone, or maybe, sadly, if it's passing, or you're not friends anymore, or something, you miss that. Hey, you remember. You remember because you have nobody else to to kind of ask,

Matt Cundill  19:52  
yeah, I mean, you're going to be left with the stories, and you're the only one left to tell the story and the person that you shared. That that event with is not with you anymore. And there's a lot

Alix Michaels  20:03  
of I know, yeah. So when we did good there in Myrtle Beach, we had, like, best of the beach a few years, stuff like that. And he was a good guy. He was a good guy, funny guy. So I'm glad I had that experience, though. Yeah.

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Matt Cundill  20:43  
Morning suck, though I hate you didn't have to when you got back to Winnipeg, because I think there was a, there was a midday position there for you at city again.

Alix Michaels  20:51  
Well, that was cool when I came back in 2010 Yeah, I shopped around, and it's like, Hey, we got a spot for you. So I ended up getting back in there a little bit. And was good until it wasn't,

Matt Cundill  21:01  
which was about a year later. Am I right? Year and a half later, two years later? Yeah,

Alix Michaels  21:06  
it was around. There was I was there for a little bit, and then I'm not quite sure when they came in, but it was like, what? 2000 something. Kind of put it out of my mind. But can you look that one up, too? What are we looking up? No, just when. Well, when 94 started, that's when I left when, because that's when I left to had a little bit of a break, and then I went to 94 but when 92 blew up, and Wheeler had moved over, and that sort of thing so

Matt Cundill  21:30  
that, so that would be 2012 and then you found your way to 94 three, which, there you go. Were they calling it the

Alix Michaels  21:35  
drive? No, it went through a couple phases. It

Matt Cundill  21:38  
was like, fab. Okay, so this is my favorite part of the radio conversation, because it starts really in right when you get back in 2010 and we have this glut of radio stations and clear, fab, fresh bounce power. And I'm like, these radio stations are fabric softeners. What is this?

Alix Michaels  22:02  
Yeah, when I came back, because, you know, I've been away for a bit, and then when I came back in the radio scene, man, it had changed a lot. Like you said, you know, I Ace Burpee was nobody when I, like, I'm just saying, like, different names and all these kind of different incarnations, different stations. What was it like when I left, like, what you were in the heat of that? What was that like?

Matt Cundill  22:20  
Well, I got here in 2006 and it was basically just, you know, manage power. And, you know, stay close to Ace Burpee at hot and, you know, you've got Wheeler and Hal and don't screw it up too much. And CJ, O, B was number one. And, by the way, it's an am radio station, and it's still practically number one, and hasn't changed much since then. But, yeah, that was, that was really it. I think power was just, you know, hey, finish top five. Finish top 325, 54, the people upstairs will get a bonus, and the hallways will be happy. Yeah, city kind of felt like the number two choice for rock for a number of years. And then there was, there was also curve, right? And curve was 2008 and I think that was a very forward thinking radio station, you know. But the mix of music that they would play was somewhat alternative, but it was chum, so there was still some pop to it. And so that was, that was interesting. They had a lot of great personalities on the air there too. What about this freak? Oh, I forgot about freak. Yeah, so freak 107, was, was in CFE Q, and you know somebody you'd know from your time at City I think Gordo Fry was, was working at. And there was just options on the radio with music and personalities. And so there was just so much to choose from, whether it was rock or it was, whether it was top 40, and, you know, even something at 92 nine, which I think was the campus station at Red River College. You know, they had good shows on and their license for something completely different. So it was, it was a seriously, very, very busy dial. And I didn't even talk about 99 nine Bob, which was, you know, we've done an episode on that, and we had Howard here on the on the program, talking about, you know, this, this is the birthplace of classic hits in North America. This, this is the

Alix Michaels  24:13  
place Howard was there at that reunion, too. So, it was great, absolutely, brain child. Yeah, that was great. Great idea.

Matt Cundill  24:19  
Hey, I think a lot of us were sort of discovering the idea, because we would get drunk, we would get drunk, and we would play 80s tunes with our friends. And I think Howard, you know, the brain trust over there were the only ones smart enough to do, hey, let's, let's do a radio format with this. And it was, yeah, it worked, and that's why we got Bob and classic hits across North America now, yeah,

Alix Michaels  24:43  
exactly, and the states together. So I was like, Oh, that started. I know where that started. It's kind of cool,

Matt Cundill  24:47  
yeah. So, I mean, you found your way over to 94 three, I can't, don't know what you were playing. You're playing fabs. That's older stuff.

Alix Michaels  24:53  
Yeah, it was like, oldies. And then we kind of went to the more of a rock thing and to drive. I liked it. It was like, it's like. In another class, you know, kind of competing for that rock pie. Guess they blew that up, and that's not doing well

Matt Cundill  25:07  
through that blow up. Well, there's a lesson in that. And so, you know, I mean, it went to drive, it went to something, then went to something, I went to something, and then, you know, con joined the conversation. And now it's alt, but all that to say. And this happens in every market. And I think in Edmonton, it was happening at 96.3 a lot. It's like, it's, it's the place on the dial that just changes so often that people in their mind just think, bad radio lives

Alix Michaels  25:30  
here. Can I because you're in, like, being a PD and stuff this market, like, what if it's just a different market, and either you get it or you don't? And I just found that, you know, something that may work in a different market in a different province doesn't work here a lot of the times. And that's what happened. I

Matt Cundill  25:48  
think a lot of people want to catch that lightning in a bottle, like the way that Bob did. You can't bring anything boring here. I mean, Winnipeg is a test market. A place like Wendy's will try out new hamburgers here. There's new products that get tested out in this market all the time, and if they work here, they will likely work in other places. But you know, when you, especially when you're a programmer, if you bring this is kind of universal, but if you bring what worked in one market to another market, it probably isn't going to work the same. But it's especially true here in Winnipeg. So I had somebody, I had Garth Bucha go sit me down. We just said, Listen, let me tell you how this works here. And he said, This is a relationships town. Everything is done with relationships and, you know, showing up, meeting people, being kind that sort of thing, get to know people, and just just work from that side, and you'll do great. And I did, and it worked

Alix Michaels  26:39  
great, yeah, I'm just telling you, you know, being in it, and that whole thing that happened, and just kind of sitting in those meetings and hearing kind of the talk, and you just kind of shake your head, going, you just don't, don't get it. And, you know, having it, I'm going to say it, having a conversation, you got to have people that can have that conversation. So you can't have a whole bunch of and I'm not slamming, but you gotta, you can't have young personalities that don't really know, and go here, have a four hour conversation and, you know, stuff like that.

Matt Cundill  27:09  
I mean, it's the hardest job, and that's creating four hours of live content and five days a week.

Alix Michaels  27:17  
It is tough. Yeah, like, I've talked to people that worked it. It was tough on them. So you, you know, and then you got, they got rid of all kind of the veterans. So it was kind of interesting choice. Yeah.

Matt Cundill  27:27  
I mean, sometime around 2012 I think the, you know, six figure salaries began to get well, they began to disappear. What a six figure salary, you know, for, for a morning never seen one in my life for a morning show. Oh, yeah. You know, they, they began to, they began to, you know, disappear, you know, if you wanted to make a big signing or a big splash, it would, it might cost that much. And there were a few who had that in a few spots,

Alix Michaels  27:52  
you know, money in the state, speaking of money, like I did the morning show, I didn't, yeah, I didn't get very South Carolina,

Matt Cundill  27:58  
yeah, it, I mean, it's, it's tough to get that. It was tough to get that six figure salary unless you had the ratings, which means you got to be top two or three, and then the fear that you were going to leave at any moment, that was it. But the

Alix Michaels  28:11  
ratings can we, well, I won't want to talk about it, but it's hard with the ratings that the crappy way that we have to listen to the radio, please. Yeah, come on, man, bbms, whatever.

Matt Cundill  28:21  
Winnipeg, I think, is the biggest market that doesn't have ppm. And I'm not here to say that ppm is a good way to measure your radio station with those pagers that that pick up the signal. Yeah, Winnipeg uses diaries, and you get one in the mail, and then you get $5 and then you have to remember what you listen to and write it down and then send it back. And it takes a long time to fill out. And people, people, I've got a survey in the field right now for my podcast, and, like, you can click it and go through it in about three minutes. I mean, I've had two people fill it out so far. Like, it's like people are over surveyed on just about everything in their life. And but to fill out this ballot now is just, is so archaic, no,

Alix Michaels  29:01  
and this is what we rely on for our ratings. Like, to you're talking about, well, if you got ratings and all that well, like one, one person filling out a diary could be worth 5000 people or whatever. Like, it's, we gotta figure that one

Matt Cundill  29:15  
out. Yeah. I mean, there is an online component to that. Now, I think you can fill some of that out. Yeah, I think

Alix Michaels  29:20  
you can online. But even not, though, Matt like, it's just, it's not a good way to to judge how people Yeah, listening.

Matt Cundill  29:28  
Well, I will say that I was at the pod show in London a few weeks ago, and and I did run into somebody who said that somebody was working with somebody here in the country to change that. And it's not that I'm not allowed to say what it is and how it works, or anything. It was cocktail hour, and I forgotten, what? What the fair enough, I can't he's from far away, but was bringing new ideas to to change this stuff in the future. So there is, there is change of foot.

Alix Michaels  29:54  
Let's hope, yes, we need it. You know, as a program director back and that was. Have been, come on. You're relying on that.

Matt Cundill  30:02  
Yeah, and it's not what you listen to, it's what you remember listening to. So you need a good voice on the radio. You need to write great promos, you need to have great contests. You need to make it so people remember what's going on for sure, who they're listening to. Gotta make good radio. You're a voice, and a great voice. She voice is what she voice productions. This is where we were writing the checks to at one point. How's that? How's how have you found voice over, over the last five to 10 years?

Alix Michaels  30:28  
Oh, let's go over the last two. Okay, as the last five wasn't too bad, but I'd say the last two for me. Anyway, I've slowed down a lot. That's by choice. I think it was getting a little burnt out, but also just with this whole AI stuff and all this, yeah, I've kind of, if it happens, if it comes to me, I do it, but I'm not searching it out as much as I used to, because it's very saturated now with people wanting to do it, which is fine. Hey, everybody do their thing. This AI and their voice and, boy, that's scary. You know, where they could actually clone my voice, like I could do a spot for somebody, and they could clone my voice and then never use me again. And I wouldn't

Matt Cundill  31:09  
know. How would I know exactly it might actually be happening? And you don't even know totally, yeah, I had somebody say, hey, this website, there's a person here named Matt. I can choose the AI voice, and it sounds an awful lot like you. And I had to go and listen and go, Oh my God, I don't want to sue anybody. I don't have time to sue anybody. What

Alix Michaels  31:25  
do you do? You can't and I get it. We're not the Yahoo guy. Did you ever hear about that lawsuit? No, the guy. Okay, so this guy for Yahoo, I'm sorry, don't know his name. You guys can Google it, but you know that? Yeah. Okay, so he did a voiceover, and he did that. It was paid like 200 bucks, okay, but he wasn't told what they were gonna do, in a sense, so they end up that was, like, their their thing, yeah, that's how you remembered Yahoo. So this guy ended up suing, and he won like millions. But that's like few and far between in that, you know, stuff like that. But look that one up.

Matt Cundill  32:02  
That's interesting. I'll leave this also on the episode page and in the show notes. But that's an episode of 20,000 hertz with Bev standing who had her voice cloned. She became the voice of Tiktok, and she had never given permission for

Alix Michaels  32:14  
it. Oh, you know, why is it? The same girl? Is she from Ontario? The

Matt Cundill  32:19  
New Girl is from Ontario, and actually Bev is from Ontario too. And so the former Bev is the former voice of Tiktok that was not authorized. They settled on a deal. And the new one is Cat Callahan, who one point an Evan off employee, and I can't remember where she

Alix Michaels  32:36  
works. Now, gotcha? Okay, no, I do. I remember her story because I saw that, but I sorry I didn't remember the other one. Wow, that's something. Oh, I put the

Matt Cundill  32:43  
podcast episode in the show notes for anybody who wants to listen to it. And 20,000 hertz is a great podcast for those who want to dig into that one. What advice would you give someone who wins money in the lottery? Don't

Alix Michaels  32:56  
spend it. Oh, well, it depends on how much you win. Yeah, you know, it's kind of changed a lot, and in how much? If you win 20 million, yeah, got to share it with your family. That's another thing that's if you win that kind of money, your family will disown you if you don't, not saying that, nobody's disowned us, but we definitely, you know, shared a little

Matt Cundill  33:14  
bit where we could think you wanted on the extra on a 649 is that

Alix Michaels  33:18  
right? No, it was lotto Max. Oh,

Matt Cundill  33:20  
not to marks, all right, what's, what's, what's that feeling like,

Alix Michaels  33:23  
wow. You know, it's a little indescribable. It's, it's un It's surreal. Actually, you don't think it's happening to you until you get the check, and then, even then, it still doesn't seem it's happening to you. I just kept thinking, thank God, because being in radio, I would never have made that kind of money. So we just thank God, and we were so happy. And, yeah, it's, I remember Curtis coming in that that what was technically morning, because he checked it was, like, two in the morning or something, and he comes, you know, knocking, because we kind of, you know, the whole two double bed thing, don't want to hear the snoring thing. And he's, like, I wasn't sure if I should wake you up, but I think we'd won the lottery. What? I think we won the lottery. Come on. So he's going through the numbers or whatever, and we're like, holy shit. We ended up doing a little video going, you know? And, yeah, it was, what about, am I the only jock that's one you think, um,

Matt Cundill  34:16  
no, but, you know, listen, most of the time when the Winnipeg Sun has a story about a local DJ, they're going to jail, and you weren't. You did not broke that trend. Yeah, what's, what's the process? Like, when you go down to the lottery office, like, what's, what's, what's that about? How's that like, what's that about? Do they are there balloons are there? Is there a marching band?

Alix Michaels  34:38  
Well, they had a limo. Come get you the limo went to the press conference there, I think it was at the convention center. God, I was so out of it. Like, you know, you were so like, they had, you know, all some of our family and press all set up. They had little tables set up. They had the big check, they had the balloons and all that stuff. But you had to give them permission to before that, right? It's like, do you give your. Permission to use your photos and stuff like that, yeah, likeness sort of thing.

Matt Cundill  35:04  
We're like, be funny if you said no, but you can listen to my show today later on the radio. Yeah,

Alix Michaels  35:08  
yeah. Hey, press, any press is good press? Okay, so, yeah. So then we just kind of did the news conference. They had the news there, and they had the congratulations, gave the check, had some questions, you know, from the media showed up on CKY later, and the news channels, and they give you the actual check, and they you deposit that thing, and you look at the numbers, and you go, Holy shit, that's amazing. It's a lot, it's a lot of numbers. Yeah, do you still play Kirk? Does? I don't, but he does more than I may pick up a quick pick or something. He's kind of got a system going now, and he's got a set of numbers, and he's like, damn it, if those numbers come in, I don't play it. So he's kind of locked in. He's

Matt Cundill  35:47  
kind of locked in. No, always a quick pick, or else he get locked in.

Alix Michaels  35:51  
Now he's locked in. He's locked in. He's got the number one, so he's gonna

Matt Cundill  35:54  
play that. What's your favorite restaurant in Winnipeg? There's

Alix Michaels  35:56  
a few good ones. I was just talking about this the other day, the merchant kitchen. Have you ever gone there and got their Korean chicken? That, that crusty chicken? Absolutely the Skillet Corn. Oh, yeah, I like that. It's a good one, too. And anything with a patio,

Matt Cundill  36:12  
yes, not, not, not in January. So for anybody who does come to Winnipeg, merchant kitchen is right across the street from Canada Life Center, where the Jets play. So great spot. And, by the way, make a reservation on Open Table before your event. It's so that's, that's great advice for anybody who's, who's coming to town. Best thing to order at Pasquale is on Marion, oh,

Alix Michaels  36:32  
my friend, Joe. I went to school with Joe, did you? Yeah? Went to school with Joe back in the day. St, Andrews locked for you know, that's right.

Matt Cundill  36:41  
Yeah, he was telling me that he was, he was from there, so

Alix Michaels  36:44  
he's got good pizzas, man, he's got, actually, he's got a lot of good stuff. The pasta, the stuff that they make, they're just, they've been around for so long. And actually, squales, here's another one for you may not know if I'm not, I'm pretty sure about this, that he bought it from. Do you remember cat Galloway? No, okay, she was announcer back in the day, in the 90s, she would have been, you know, when I was around Don Percy and cat Galloway. Anyway, lesherbou is her real last name, Kathy lesherbo. And great girl, great girl. But she lives in BC now, and whatever. But her dad started pasquales, and I believe they sold pasquales to Joe. Wow, yeah. So I remember Kat used to, you know, waitress at Pasquale is when her dad owned it. I'm pretty sure that's the story, yeah, and

Matt Cundill  37:29  
it is my favorite pizza in Winnipeg. Oh, it is. It's good, yeah. What's the best thing about summer in Winnipeg, getting

Alix Michaels  37:34  
out of Winnipeg? Just kidding. No, actually, kayaking. You'd be surprised. There's lots of great spots. If you just head out of town, we've got a lot of great parks and stuff like that. I could go down to say, lactobani area and stuff down that way. I love doing the kayaking and getting outdoors. There's a lot of spots that you don't know about here in the city or outside of the city. That's great.

Matt Cundill  37:56  
Yeah, I like Beaudry Park. Oh, okay, which is down towards Headingley, okay? And you can sneak in there for a quick cross country ski. Love

Alix Michaels  38:04  
it. Yeah? I like doing, like, the the stuff on the water. Like doing some boating, kayaking, because you don't get to do that. But then I also snowmobile, too, in the winter time, you know, hit some trails and do that sort of stuff. So I find the outdoor, the outdoor stuff around here is great. Yeah. So

Matt Cundill  38:20  
here's the thing with the snowmobiling. So for me, I haven't had much of a chance to do it in my life, but I do know that if you're from St Andrews and up in that area, the trails up there, that is snowmobile territory up there, yeah, well, St

Alix Michaels  38:34  
Andrews ain't that far. You know, St Andrews ain't that far. But even if you go to like birds Hill Park, they've got all these trails in birds Hill Park, lactobani, all those trails down there hitting the river, you wouldn't believe it. It's like a little town on the river with all these shacks and stuff in certain areas. It's like, wow. So and, you know, further up north, you go stuff like that, yeah, there's some good spots if you know where to look. Sometimes, you know, if you look downtown, you go, huh? What's there to do? But if you go outside, there's lots of good stuff I find. Anyway. What

Matt Cundill  39:04  
makes Winnipeg so weird? How do you explain Winnipeg? Wow, to somebody who's not from Winnipeg, it is

Alix Michaels  39:11  
tough to explain. It's gotten weirder. Matt, has it gotten weirder? Yep, I think so too. And I don't know how to explain it. I really don't. Is it just more of a mix of people? Is it just more people down on their luck? I I don't know, but it is definitely strange. Well,

Matt Cundill  39:29  
I think the downtown is emptier. Yes, I sort of when people say, Well, why is it weird? I said, Well, you know, Portage and Main and by the way, Portage and Main is one of the more famous things that Canadians would know about Winnipeg is the intersection so, well, they don't let people cross the street there. And, well, they do now, because they're going to open it up. But we had a referendum on that in 2018 Why do you need a referendum to cross the street? People get petty and bizarre and well, now the downtown's sort of hold out, but I think the. One thing that really captures it. There's a collection of Instagram accounts, you know, wild in Winnipeg and Winnipeg elite. There's a bunch of them that just sort of share the film of the everyday goings on here and go, I can't believe the stuff they get well, you know, we don't see that anywhere else. Cars driving down the wrong lane for no reason. You know, people hanging out windows, traffic lights coming apart, just just absolutely atrocious driving. Like, why and how?

Alix Michaels  40:28  
I don't even know, because I consider myself kind of normal, and I'm from Winnipeg. I was born and bred in Manitoba, so I don't think I'm strange, but there seems to be a lot of strangeness out there, and I don't, I don't know what to attribute it to, Matt. I don't, I don't know that you brought it up, but you're right. Like, I'm following those same things that you're following in some of the videos that they've caught. I'm like, this is here. This is here.

Matt Cundill  40:53  
I sort of encapsulated by, uh, by Guy Madden, and that film he had many years ago in 2000 my Winnipeg. And you know, he would talk about the, you know, some of the weird stuff, and some of it's true and some of it's not true. But if you watch the whole thing, it's like, hey, yeah, you know what? He's got a point. It really is weird here.

Alix Michaels  41:15  
Did you ever talk to him? Guy? No, I did. I had him on Facebook. I was a friend with him for a little bit. I don't know if I still am, but he, he friended me on Facebook, and it was kind of nice. I don't know if he's just, I don't know, but he's, he's a little strange too, but in a good way, you know. So I don't know. Maybe I am strange because he's from here too. I don't know. But when you watched it. What'd you think of it? Like, seriously, I thought it was out there. Oh, it was definitely

Matt Cundill  41:44  
out there. Yeah. Like, like, you know, the the idea of that, the Winnipeg streets, the female names are named after the hookers that frequented the those corners. And I'm like, is that real or not? And I don't know if that's real or not. With that well, because there's so many weird things that happen every day, that's everybody puts up with it and goes, I guess. Well, apparently,

Alix Michaels  42:04  
there is clusters of neighborhoods that are named after stuff. I just found this out a few weeks ago, like there's a neighborhood where it's flowers and they're all flower streets, and there's a neighborhood something else, and it's all certain names. Have you heard

Matt Cundill  42:17  
about that? Yeah, absolutely. If you go, yeah, maybe it is true,

Alix Michaels  42:21  
maybe not, but he's maybe getting on that idea of those kind of things and kind of, you know, spun it guy, Madden style, yeah.

Matt Cundill  42:28  
And there was, there was another thing he mentioned in the films such as well, one taxi. There were only two taxi companies. One company got to use the real streets, and the other company had to use the back alleys. And I'm not sure if that was true or not, but there were two taxi companies at the time. So how would I even know? And so much else is weird here, either I'll just go with it and say yes, yeah. And I mean, back

Alix Michaels  42:50  
alleys. Where do we start with there? Like, who else has back alleys? Are we the only ones? Or no back alleys?

Matt Cundill  42:56  
Well, I think so many of them. I mean, I look at a place, a place like River Heights, like, it just starts at the Assiniboine River and goes all the way down to the train tracks. And every 10 years, like you can see that new housing developments, yeah, it's just alleyways everywhere. And, yeah, oh, okay, it's quite something I don't know. Yeah, yeah. It's a mystery. Anyway, this is why the Simpsons had a billboard when they flashed a Winnipeg saying, Winnipeg, we live here. What's your excuse?

Alix Michaels  43:28  
Have you thought about leaving? Oh, every day. Yeah, me too, but we're still here, right?

Matt Cundill  43:33  
Yeah. You know, I will say though that I've cut my time. So I've split my time between here and Spain, generally leaving quite a lot, but I will say that summer in Winnipeg is great. It is. I love it here in the summer.

Alix Michaels  43:46  
You know, here's the thing, when I left for a while, and, you know, I was, you know, in the States and all that stuff, and then coming back home, I did notice that comfort that I wouldn't have noticed otherwise if I hadn't left for a while, because when I came back, that comfort of knowing where you're going and your friends and, oh, I know that place, and I grew up over there, and I have a memory over in that corner, and, oh, I remember that that is, you know, special, because when I came back, I was like, Oh, I felt it again. And actually was renewed when I came back. I'm like, Oh, I'm back. Didn't last long. But you know, you grew here. It is your home, and it always is going to be for me anyway, my home. I was born here. But I can't I have to say I have been looking to do other things, like to kind of get out a little bit, always come back. But damn it,

Matt Cundill  44:35  
my family are still here. Well, we'll split

Alix Michaels  44:36  
a cab to the airport. Can I say one thing? Sure, I wanted to say, Happy Anniversary on your nine years with your podcast. That crazy. That is crazy because I think I remember when you started, like, when you were saying, Well, I'm gonna do this podcast and all this and and now it's like nine years. How's it

Matt Cundill  44:52  
been? Well, I don't know. Why did it take nine years to get you on?

Alix Michaels  44:55  
I'm awful, and I apologize for that. Yeah, that was my bad. First

Matt Cundill  44:59  
of all. So I've, there's still a bunch of people I still haven't had on yet. Oh, and I go back, what? Hey, do you want to do it this month or next month or this year? And, you know, it doesn't, it just doesn't happen. But I'm like, you just got to keep asking, and eventually it just happens.

Alix Michaels  45:12  
Do you like doing podcasts? I do. Yeah, that's good, and that's the most important thing, if you like what

Matt Cundill  45:16  
you're doing. Yeah, it's, I kind of feel like I wake up to the future every day, and I've learned how to do audio in a recorded format. And I sort of look at this as a little bit like Netflix. So Netflix is on demand television, right? So what's Netflix's biggest competition? Is it? You? We think it's always gonna be Amazon Prime, or it's gonna be television, or it's gonna be something, but it's sleep, Oh, right. And so it's you're dealing in the on demand world. You're dealing with all the shit people got to cope in their life, and you have to market your way through that. And it's just, it's kind of a pleasant difference from city 92 city FM versus Power 97 versus cgob versus Ace Burpee ace burpees, Empire and all that stuff, you know, it's, it's just nicer, you know, to to sort of play in this sort of on demand field and sort of new way to learn so

Alix Michaels  46:09  
well, you know, it's something new. And I'm glad you started it. It's kind of like you were at the beginning, a little bit right, of the podcast sort

Matt Cundill  46:15  
of thing. I was, I was sort of in wave, you know, I guess maybe the second wave, maybe, maybe even the third wave. First wave was 2004 2003 when they started actually write the code for this. 2008 it goes into Apple, and then 2015 someone listens. I mean, cereal pops, and then everyone's like, how do I listen to this thing? Oh, there's an app on the phone and I can listen to these things. So there was been a few waves.

Alix Michaels  46:38  
And I just mentioned that because with my with voice work. I was, you know, kind of one of the ones that kind of started in the beginning. Like, I don't know if it's like 2007 something like that. It was kind of just starting like, Oh, hey, get a microphone, get, you know, all this equipment. It was a little more money back then, but I was kind of at the start where I had a studio and I had different things, and that helped get clients. Now it's a little more congested on being able to do it. Everybody has a can do it right back then being able to get into the start was a little easier than maybe it is now. Yeah,

Matt Cundill  47:08  
no, it's like Fiverr Upwork.

Alix Michaels  47:14  
Don't do fiber people. Don't give away your

Matt Cundill  47:16  
stuff. Nope, do not do that. Thank you. Yeah, Alex, yeah, Matt, Guess we'll catch you on the radio tomorrow.

Alix Michaels  47:22  
Yeah, thankfully, my card still swipes. I'm still getting in Ciao, the

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  47:28  
sound off podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill, produced by Evan sirminsky, edited by Taylor McLean, social media by Aiden glassy, another great creation from the sound off media company, there's always more at sound off podcast.com. You.