David Marsden
Encyclopedia
David Marsden is a Canadian
radio
broadcaster. As the driving force behind Brampton, Ontario
radio station CFNY
in the 1980s, he became an influential figure in the Canadian music industry by giving many Canadian and international alternative rock
artists major Canadian radio exposure. During his stint at CFNY, he was known as "The Mars Bar".
, a Canadian rock band in the late 1950s whose most famous member, Richard Manuel
, would later become part of The Band
. He later became one of Canada's pioneering rock
DJs on radio, joining Chatham
's CFCO
in 1963. Bored with the station's commercial easy listening
music, he reportedly brought in some of his own records one night, breaking format and hosting in an uncharacteristically dynamic style. He was fired the next morning, but was quickly rehired after the station learned that his experiment had increased the station's ratings.
He was later hired at CKEY
in Toronto
where he was called "the most controversial thing on Toronto radio." He parted ways with CKEY after just five months. He became host of Music Hop on CBC Television
in 1965, succeeding Alex Trebek
. He also started writing a column for the Toronto Star
in the same year. He was the subject of a chapter in Marshall McLuhan
's book Understanding Media, which lauded his unique hosting style:
As David Marsden, he joined Montreal's CKGM in 1967 and in 1969, he moved to sister station, CKGM-FM
. Marsden was instrumental in switching the station's format from beautiful music to free form progressive rock. In 1973, returned to Toronto with a completely different on-air persona at CHUM-FM
. He left the station in February 1975 to devote more time to his radio commercial production company, but later returned as a host on CHIC-FM shortly before it was transformed into CFNY
.
, but before Marsden's arrival the station's format had been highly eclectic. Marsden saw the commercial potential of punk
and new wave
, and opened CFNY's focus, creating Canada's first alternative music station. Throughout the 1980s, under the slogan the spirit of radio, CFNY was one of the most influential promoters of new international and Canadian artists most radio stations ignored.
In July 1987, Marsden and CFNY general manager Bill Hutton hired Don Berns as the new program director. Initially, Marsden continued as director of operations, and as executive producer of the CASBY Award
s, but left CFNY a year later. He joined the CBC and moved to Vancouver to produce the successful TV show Pilot 1. That show won several awards, including a silver medal at the Chicago Film and Video Festival. Following that, Marsden launched another freeform modern rock station, Coast 800, later Coast 1040, in Vancouver.
He was later involved in the creation of Iceberg Radio
, the first major Canadian Internet radio
project, and returned to the terrestrial radio airwaves as host of a freeform rock show on The Rock 94.9
in the early 2000s. CKGE-FM
is based in Oshawa, Ontario. He currently hosts The David Marsden Radio Program on Saturday and Sunday nights on The Rock. Marsden is also currently Program Director at KRYD-FM
in Montrose, Colorado.
Marsden currently lives in Toronto.
He has also been profiled in exhibits at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
, both for his on-air Dave Mickie persona and for his role as program director of CFNY. He is openly
gay
, and has also worked as a club DJ at gay club nights dubbed "The Mars Bar".
and on their website www.therock.fm. Marsden's show has been on CKGE-FM
since they became 94.9 The Rock in 2003. Originally, Marsden's show was on Thursday and Friday nights but it was switched to it's current time slots in late 2009. Marsden is currently the only free form DJ on a commercial radio station in North America. Marsden's show is unique because he plays what he wants and he interacts with his listeners through The Marsden Theatre Chatroom on his website as well as his Facebook Profile page. Marsden has also used his current radio show to break new Canadian acts including: Slave to the SQUAREwave, Tin Star Orphans, Hunter Valentine and Hidden Cameras. His show continues to embody the type of radio that he created at CFNY-FM
in the 1970's and 1980's.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
broadcaster. As the driving force behind Brampton, Ontario
Brampton, Ontario
Brampton is the third-largest city in the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario, Canada and the seat of Peel Region. As of the 2006 census, Brampton's population stood at 433,806, making it the 11th largest city in Canada. It is also one of Canada's fastest growing municipalities, with an average...
radio station CFNY
CFNY-FM
CFNY-FM, promoted under the branding 102.1 The Edge, is a Canadian radio station, broadcasting at 102.1 FM. The station rose to prominence in the 1970s and 1980s due to its freestyle DJing format and unique choice to play alternative music...
in the 1980s, he became an influential figure in the Canadian music industry by giving many Canadian and international alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
artists major Canadian radio exposure. During his stint at CFNY, he was known as "The Mars Bar".
Early career
Under the name Dave Mickie, he was the original manager of The RevolsThe Revols
The Revols were a Canadian band from Stratford, Ontario, Canada, formed in 1957, with Richard Manuel on piano and vocals, John Till on guitar, Ken Kalmusky on bass, Doug Rhodes on vocals and Jim Winkler on Drums...
, a Canadian rock band in the late 1950s whose most famous member, Richard Manuel
Richard Manuel
Richard George Manuel was a Canadian composer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist, best known for his contributions to and membership in The Band....
, would later become part of The Band
The Band
The Band was an acclaimed and influential roots rock group. The original group consisted of Rick Danko , Garth Hudson , Richard Manuel , and Robbie Robertson , and Levon Helm...
. He later became one of Canada's pioneering rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
DJs on radio, joining Chatham
Chatham, Ontario
Chatham is the largest community in the municipality of Chatham-Kent, Ontario. Formerly serving as the seat of Kent County, the governments of the former city of Chatham, the county of Kent, and its townships were merged into one entity known as the Municipality of Chatham-Kent in 1998.Located on...
's CFCO
CFCO (AM)
CFCO is a news, sports, and country music radio station located in Chatham-Kent, Ontario. The station, owned by London, Ontario-based Blackburn Radio, features a heavy local news commitment...
in 1963. Bored with the station's commercial easy listening
Easy listening
Easy listening is a broad style of popular music and radio format that emerged in the 1950s, evolving out of big band music, and related to MOR music as played on many AM radio stations. It encompasses the exotica, beautiful music, light music, lounge music, ambient music, and space age pop genres...
music, he reportedly brought in some of his own records one night, breaking format and hosting in an uncharacteristically dynamic style. He was fired the next morning, but was quickly rehired after the station learned that his experiment had increased the station's ratings.
He was later hired at CKEY
CHKT (AM)
CHKT is a Canadian radio station, airing at 1430 AM in Toronto, Ontario. The station, owned by the Fairchild Radio service, airs Chinese language programming.-History:The station first aired in 1925 as AM 840 CKCL, owned by the Dominion Battery company...
in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
where he was called "the most controversial thing on Toronto radio." He parted ways with CKEY after just five months. He became host of Music Hop on CBC Television
CBC Television
CBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...
in 1965, succeeding Alex Trebek
Alex Trebek
George Alexander "Alex" Trebek is a Canadian American game show host who has been the host of the game show Jeopardy! since 1984, and prior to that, he hosted game shows such as Pitfall and High Rollers. He has appeared in numerous television series, usually as himself...
. He also started writing a column for the Toronto Star
Toronto Star
The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...
in the same year. He was the subject of a chapter in Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
Herbert Marshall McLuhan, CC was a Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar—a professor of English literature, a literary critic, a rhetorician, and a communication theorist...
's book Understanding Media, which lauded his unique hosting style:
That's Patty Baby and that's the girl with the dancing feet and that's Freddy Cannon there on the David Mickie Show in the night time ooohbah scuba-doo how are you booboo. Next we'll be Swinging on a Star and sssshhhwwoooo and sliding on a moonbeam. Waaaaa how about that . . . one of the goodest guys with you . . . this is lovable kissable D.M. in the p.m. at 22 minutes past nine o'clock there, aahhrightie, we're gonna have a Hitline, all you have to do is call WAlnut 5-1151, WAlnut 5-1151, tell them what number it is on the Hitline.
As David Marsden, he joined Montreal's CKGM in 1967 and in 1969, he moved to sister station, CKGM-FM
CHOM-FM
CHOM-FM is an English language radio station located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Owned and operated by Astral Media, it broadcasts on 97.7 MHz from the Mount Royal candelabra tower, with an effective radiated power of 41,200 watts using an omnidirectional antenna.The station has a mainstream rock...
. Marsden was instrumental in switching the station's format from beautiful music to free form progressive rock. In 1973, returned to Toronto with a completely different on-air persona at CHUM-FM
CHUM-FM
CHUM-FM is a Canadian radio station licensed to Toronto, Ontario and operated by Bell Media. It broadcasts at 104.5 MHz with a hot adult contemporary format that leans towards rhythmic adult contemporary...
. He left the station in February 1975 to devote more time to his radio commercial production company, but later returned as a host on CHIC-FM shortly before it was transformed into CFNY
CFNY-FM
CFNY-FM, promoted under the branding 102.1 The Edge, is a Canadian radio station, broadcasting at 102.1 FM. The station rose to prominence in the 1970s and 1980s due to its freestyle DJing format and unique choice to play alternative music...
.
Creates The Spirit of Radio
After CFNY program director Dave Pritchard left the station in 1978 due to conflicts with the station management, Marsden was promoted to program director. The station's mandate had been to present significantly different programming than other radio stations in the Greater Toronto AreaGreater Toronto Area
The Greater Toronto Area is the largest metropolitan area in Canada, with a 2006 census population of 5.5 million. The Greater Toronto Area is usually defined as the central city of Toronto, along with four regional municipalities surrounding it: Durham, Halton, Peel, and York...
, but before Marsden's arrival the station's format had been highly eclectic. Marsden saw the commercial potential of punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
and new wave
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
, and opened CFNY's focus, creating Canada's first alternative music station. Throughout the 1980s, under the slogan the spirit of radio, CFNY was one of the most influential promoters of new international and Canadian artists most radio stations ignored.
In July 1987, Marsden and CFNY general manager Bill Hutton hired Don Berns as the new program director. Initially, Marsden continued as director of operations, and as executive producer of the CASBY Award
CASBY Award
The CASBY Award is a Canadian award for independent and alternative music, presented annually by Toronto, Ontario radio station CFNY, currently branded as 102.1 The Edge. The name CASBY stands for Canadian Artists Selected By You....
s, but left CFNY a year later. He joined the CBC and moved to Vancouver to produce the successful TV show Pilot 1. That show won several awards, including a silver medal at the Chicago Film and Video Festival. Following that, Marsden launched another freeform modern rock station, Coast 800, later Coast 1040, in Vancouver.
He was later involved in the creation of Iceberg Radio
Iceberg Radio
Iceberg Radio is a Canadian Internet radio service, which provides more than 100 channels of streaming audio. Founded in 1997 by the late John Walters and DJ Hedley Jones as the Virtual Canadian Broadcast Network, it was one of the first major ventures into large-scale Internet audio broadcasting...
, the first major Canadian Internet radio
Internet radio
Internet radio is an audio service transmitted via the Internet...
project, and returned to the terrestrial radio airwaves as host of a freeform rock show on The Rock 94.9
CKGE-FM
CKGE-FM is a Canadian radio station, broadcasting at 94.9 FM in Oshawa, Ontario. The station broadcasts an active rock format under the brand name 94.9 The Rock....
in the early 2000s. CKGE-FM
CKGE-FM
CKGE-FM is a Canadian radio station, broadcasting at 94.9 FM in Oshawa, Ontario. The station broadcasts an active rock format under the brand name 94.9 The Rock....
is based in Oshawa, Ontario. He currently hosts The David Marsden Radio Program on Saturday and Sunday nights on The Rock. Marsden is also currently Program Director at KRYD-FM
KRYD (FM)
KRYD is a radio station broadcasting a rock music music format in the Grand Junction Colorado market. Licensed to Norwood, Colorado, USA. The station is currently owned by Rocky Iii Investments....
in Montrose, Colorado.
Marsden currently lives in Toronto.
He has also been profiled in exhibits at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is dedicated to archiving the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, engineers and others who have, in some major way,...
, both for his on-air Dave Mickie persona and for his role as program director of CFNY. He is openly
Coming out
Coming out is a figure of speech for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people's disclosure of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity....
gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
, and has also worked as a club DJ at gay club nights dubbed "The Mars Bar".
The David Marsden Radio Program
The David Marsden Radio Program, also known as The Marsden Theatre, broadcasts on Saturday and Sunday nights on Oshawa, Ontario radio station CKGE-FMCKGE-FM
CKGE-FM is a Canadian radio station, broadcasting at 94.9 FM in Oshawa, Ontario. The station broadcasts an active rock format under the brand name 94.9 The Rock....
and on their website www.therock.fm. Marsden's show has been on CKGE-FM
CKGE-FM
CKGE-FM is a Canadian radio station, broadcasting at 94.9 FM in Oshawa, Ontario. The station broadcasts an active rock format under the brand name 94.9 The Rock....
since they became 94.9 The Rock in 2003. Originally, Marsden's show was on Thursday and Friday nights but it was switched to it's current time slots in late 2009. Marsden is currently the only free form DJ on a commercial radio station in North America. Marsden's show is unique because he plays what he wants and he interacts with his listeners through The Marsden Theatre Chatroom on his website as well as his Facebook Profile page. Marsden has also used his current radio show to break new Canadian acts including: Slave to the SQUAREwave, Tin Star Orphans, Hunter Valentine and Hidden Cameras. His show continues to embody the type of radio that he created at CFNY-FM
CFNY-FM
CFNY-FM, promoted under the branding 102.1 The Edge, is a Canadian radio station, broadcasting at 102.1 FM. The station rose to prominence in the 1970s and 1980s due to its freestyle DJing format and unique choice to play alternative music...
in the 1970's and 1980's.