Fusion

Grasshopper's bass player, Mike C, the linebacker of basslines, was still working every Sunday morning at CIAO radio in Brampton, a multi cultural radio station. Mike didn't necessarily enjoy the type of music he had to spin, but he loved the job for the simple fact that he was getting hands on experience in radio broadcasting. Grasshopper had done a few interviews now on "college radio" stations like 88.1 CKLN, 105.5 CHRY, and 89.5, and we were catching up to speed with Mike, in regards to how the inner workings of a radio station operated.

Our hosts were always gracious, they gave us the liberty to pick the music we wanted to hear, and some of them even let us smoke dope right in the control room. One time in particular at CHRY, security guards came knocking on the door of the radio station, as they could smell the pot in the hallways of the university. The host of the show quickly dismissed them, stating we were "live on the air" and they couldn't interfere with the broadcast. It felt nice to get that royal treatment.

Meanwhile back at CIAO radio, Mike had a friend and coworker named Stuart, who coincidentally happened to be friends with a gifted young film maker named Owen Roberts, the same Owen Roberts who had produced the amazing Epileptic Brain Surgeons music video for "Cows" a year or two prior to this timeframe.

Stuart informed Mike that Owen was starting up his own show on Rogers cable 10 television in Brampton, with Stu as his trusted sidekick and sound engineer. The show would be called "Fusion" and the premise of it was to showcase local artists, wether they be involved in music, art, poetry, or any other type of expressive art form. Needless to say, we thought it was an incredible idea and we were more than happy to oblige when Owen asked us to perform on the show.

We ended up going into cable 10 studios after business hours. Asides from us, Owen, and Stu, nobody else was in the building. Once again we were shown great hospitality behind those closed doors. Carte blanch to snoop around, smoke weed, and have our run of the place, as Owen set up a stage for us to perform on while Stuart hooked up all of the audio equipment. We pretty much had an empty area of a room to perform in, with nothing more than a black curtain behind us and some lighting. It seemed a bit bland and boring, so we went around ransacking all of the offices for any plants we could find. From there we set all the plants up around our gear, and a little bit of life was injected into the stage setup.

We played through a few songs while Owen filmed and Stu worked the soundboard. It was a total trip being in that building. After what seemed like the longest night ever, we busted out of there not long before sunrise. I imagine the people who worked there were probably en route with their morning coffees to start the day as we were heading home to bed to end our day.

Shortly after that experience, Owen invited us back in to view the footage with him. The audio recording wasn't as polished as we'd hoped, but visually we were happy with what the guys had put together. We picked the two songs that we thought sounded the best and left it in Owen's hands. It wouldn't be long until the first episode of Fusion aired on cable 10, and we anticipated it with great excitement.

The day, or night, finally came for the premier episode of Fusion, and it was awesome. Owen had done a great job editing, arranging, and producing a solid little independent television show. It felt pretty cool seeing myself on tv, and I wondered how many other Bramptonians had witnessed the show. If people had at all been wondering what I had been up to, they now had an answer. The show was on fairly late, and had a scheduled time slot, but somehow Fusion was being aired quite frequently. It was almost as if cable10 was playing it anytime they needed to fill an empty time slot, and we sure as hell weren't complaining about it.

Sure enough, Fusion started causing a buzz. People I hadn't spoken with since high school were contacting me to say they had seen me on television. Whenever I ran into people I hadn't seen in awhile, they too would mention the fact they had seen Fusion. It was almost as if all the bugs were coming out of the woodwork, as some very unlikely people went out of their way to contact myself, Mike, or Derek.

I really admired and appreciated what Owen was doing. One one hand he was trying to establish a name for himself as a film maker, and on the other hand he was going out of his way to help promote local artists and make the public aware of them. I had nothing but the utmost respect for him.

I was definitely interested to see what Owen would bring forth in the next episode...