Welcome to JJ-365 Salutes. Over 2018, we pay tribute daily to one of “The Good Ones”. Today we are shining the light on Peter Diemer.

Peter and I have known each other a long time through our respective industries. We’d always get together and laugh it up with no shortage of stories from either of us. We have a lot of things in common; we have the same birthday, we come from the east but have a huge affinity for the west coast, love music and radio, and have kids about the same age. We’d talk music lots. There were disagreements of course as we both had separate mandates, and Peter would be very persistent but respectful. When he was onto a record he'd be on your leg. Those situations always ended, after a number of full discussions, in a fun kind of “agree to disagree” way.

Originally from Toronto, Peter went to broadcast school at SAIT in Calgary and graduated from the Television Stage and Radio Arts Program. He started at CJAY in early 1979, hired by the legendary 365’er Tom Tompkins. 

He started with weekend all nights, moved up to full-time all nights when a position became available. He loved working with great people like Jim Ripley, Jim O’Callaghan, Don Stevens (Hamilton), 365’ers Robin Robin LaRose and Marty Forbes, and a few more characters along the way. Peter climbed up through the ranks and settled in as Music Director/On-Air until his departure to MCA Records. He has so many fond memories at the station even going back to his very early days when the late and great Ralph Klein was at CFCN Television and spent many evenings in the control room with him after midnight when he finished his stint on the local news.

365’er Lesley Soldat hired Peter in the fall of 1983 to be the MCA Records Promotion Rep for B.C. and he stayed there until May 1985. He met so many great radio people at the time when CFOX was really exploding, LG73 and CFUN were battling it out, and CFMI way out in New Westminster was making some serious noise too. He also fondly remembers the times going to promote country records, specifically with ‘Weird Harold’ at CKWX. He had his first introductions to all the radio characters like Dale Buote, Rick Shannon, Clara Caratenuto, Frank Gigliotti, Lionel Wilson, Dave Brian, Monica Netupsky and 365’ers Dave Chesney, Ray Raymond Ramsay, Don Shafer, and so many more. He met Terry David TD Mulligan initially when they were taping Good Rockin’ Tonite and spent a lot of time learning about TV from him and Ken Gibson.

He also had my first real dealings with the concert promoters and the legendary group at Perryscope – people like Riley O’Connor, Gerry Barad, Susan Rosenberg, Mark Norman and Dave Clark.

Peter promoted countless records and spent time with most of the huge artists along the way including Billy Idol, Spandau Ballet, Boulevard, Huey Lewis & The News, The Fixx, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Nik Kershaw, Loretta Lynn, B.B. King, George Strait, Midge Ure/Ultravox, The Waterboys, U2, Robert Palmer, Oak Ridge Boys, Lyle Lovett, Alice Cooper, Glenn Frey, Stevie Wonder, Steve Earle, The Pursuit of Happiness, Triumph, Elton John, Tom Petty, Reba McEntire, Concrete Blonde, Glen Campbell, Kenny Rogers, Vince Gill, Sinead O’Connor, R.E.M., Fine Young Cannibals, The Alarm and had his first dealings ever with Irving Azoff when they were promoting the Miami Vice Soundtrack.

There were great people at MCA, Ross Reynolds, John Alexander, Ron Suter, Stephen Tennant, Paul Orescan, and many more that he can’t even begin to list. 

One of his key highlights at MCA was ‘going to war with CFOX’ over Frankie Goes To Hollywood with the song ‘Two Tribes’, and scheming with the Island Records team on that one. All of a sudden, Bernie the famous FOX/LG receptionist calls down to programming that they better come upstairs and pretty quick. Up they came to see an authentic Army tank with its long nosed cannon pointed at the building. Peter was on the tank yelling something like “think we can talk, and you re-think your position on the Frankie Goes to Hollywood record?” “yes okay, just put that thing down first!” It was a fun shenanigan and the station eventually came around, without any mortar shells up the butt of 1006 Richards.

That and many other creative hi-jinks got him on the nationwide radar and the following year he moved to Toronto to join the Ontario branch with Randy Lennox as their Branch Manager, yes THAT Randy Lennox who became the Universal Music President and is now BELL’s big boss. When Lesley left to join Gary Slaight and started Soundsource, Peter was promoted to Director of National Promotion. One of the very first and probably most memorable singles/albums that he worked in his new role was the now infamous ‘Blow At High Dough’ by The Tragically Hip, the lead single from their first MCA album, ‘Up To Here’. It took a lot of convincing in the early days at radio, but the rest is history.

In 1990, Deane Cameron approached Peter to join the quickly growing team at Capitol Records – EMI Music Canada. His vision was to build the best roster of Canadian artists that this country had ever seen and make it a welcoming home for all of them. Peter explains: “This was an incredible journey that likely requires a book to tell the whole story, but we did it. When I think back to the artists and projects that we worked and the bond that was created between artists and staff - it’s remarkable. Every artist became part of our family and we worked all projects the same, with an incredible passion that sometimes tested the relationships that we had at so many different levels. No one could ever accuse of us not trying! Some of the Canadian artists that we signed and worked with included (in no particular order) Tom Cochrane, Moist/David Usher, The Tea Party, The Rankin Family, Susan Aglukark, Nickelback, Dayna Manning, Burton Cummings, 13 Engines, Amy Sky, Marc Jordan, Smoother, Anne Murray, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Kim Stockwood, Damhnait Doyle, Sarah McLachlan, Bruce Guthro, Tariq, Alias, John McDermott, The Watchmen, The Grapes of Wrath, Stompin’ Tom Connors, David Gogo, Rita MacNeil, Molly Johnson, K-OS, Econoline Crush, Kenny Hess, Sky, Patricia O’Callaghan, Glass Tiger/Alan Frew, Tara MacLean, The Moffatts, Robbie Robertson, Jane Bunnett and more!!!”

Peter says when he reflects back at the international roster and all of the artists that he had personal touch points with it was incredible and humbling – Paul McCartney, Garth Brooks, Robbie Williams, Sarah Brightman, Coldplay, Radiohead, Foo Fighters, Prince, Bob Seger, Charles Aznavour, Blur, Gorillaz, Jesus Jones, MC Hammer, Crowded House, Duran Duran, Kate Bush, Richard Marx, Beastie Boys, Norah Jones, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, The Pet Shop Boys, Jon Secada, Sawyer Brown, Yoko Ono, MC Hammer, Bonnie Raitt, Queensryche, Blind Melon, Tanya Tucker, Meredith Brooks, Marcy Playground, Geri Halliwell, Everclear, Dave Koz, The Smithereens, The Dandy Warhols, Liz Phair, Spearhead, Starsailor, Supergrass, Butthole Surfers, EMF, Kylie Minogue and again, so many more.

So many stories but one of Peter’s favourites was about the late and great Stompin’ Tom. Every year Peter would get invited to his Christmas party which always featured beer, KFC and the fixin’s and a night of music bandits in Tom’s basement which was built as a full-fledged pub, complete with plywood for Tom to do some Stompin’ on, which he did. It was always a long night and one year Peter snuck out, only to find Tom following him all in fun, catching him, putting him in a headlock and dragging him back into the party.

Many of those relationships with artists have lasted right through to today and when he sees them professionally or personally, it’s always a welcome greeting.

One moment that will always stand out for him was September 11, 2001. A large group of them were in Calgary for the Canadian Country Music Awards (CMA’s) and were all planning on flying home that day. We all know what happened that morning in New York. As it turned out, Deane Cameron and Peter drove back to Ontario, together, just the two of them in a mini-van. What a journey, right down to sharing a motel room in Wawa. A ‘those aren’t pillows ‘moment?

Peter says the staff bond that they had at EMI and VIRGIN was like no other that he’s experienced or witnessed, ever. There are still regular get-together's with everyone from the company, many names that everyone in the industry will know and remember, again too many to list here he says.

When Peter decided to leave EMI in the summer of 2002, the winds of change were beginning to blow very hard in the music industry with advent of Napster and downloading/file sharing in its early days. He always had the intention of returning to Vancouver, just didn’t expect it to be seventeen years and a career in the record industry later. They packed up the crew and moved to Vancouver and he took a break to catch his breath, spend a lot of time with his family and re-tooled himself for the technology and digital media world, an area that was of great interest to him.

He was asked to join Musicrypt/DMDS as one of the first few people at the company and describes that as quite a ride: “We were trying to change the way an industry received and delivered its music – digitally, rather than via physical distribution. For those that recall the early days of DMDS it was a lot of trial and error, but we did it and managed to take the company public and many people will recognize it today as Yangaroo, with the foundation being DMDS.”

After a number of years doing that Peter stepped even further into the digital world and helped start Hip Digital Media with his old mate from SAIT, Mark Holden, who’s also a member of the band Boulevard (whose work Peter promoted when he was at MCA). They launched the company and did venture funding from a few different sources and managed to grow the business to almost 50 staff members with offices in Vancouver, Toronto, London, New York/Atlanta. HIP Digital Media was eventually acquired by Snipp and is publicly traded today.

Peter dabbled in a few other things with 365’er Shawn Smith at Momentum Media, most notably helping out the CBC with the launch, licensing and strategy for their CBC Music platform. Out of that work came the opportunity to strike a commercial agreement with the CBC for the entertainment archives that he started with Deane Cameron and continued with Mark Holden. They formed a company called Majik Bus Entertainment, which is very active today. These archives are a national treasure, and the first few items have been released and you’ll be hearing a lot more about that soon.

When Peter jointed Live Nation Canada in the summer of 2016, in a newly created role, as the Vice President, Strategic Development, he stepped away from the day-to-day activities at Majik Bus and although he’s still involved, Mark Holden runs the company now.

These days Peter split him time between West Vancouver and Gibsons, on the Sunshine Coast.

Quick with a laugh, loaded with stories, humourous, ahead of the curve, hard working, smart, creative, and fearless is how I would describe Peter. He is still making a difference, and of yeah, he is also a terrific family man! Keep it going Peter and atta be!

Thank you, Peter Diemer for being one of “The Good Ones”. Feel free to like and share Peter’s positive story. Who is the subject of tomorrow’s JJ-365 Salutes? As they say, stay tuned.

Jim JJ Johnston is the multi award-winning CEO, President and Chief Talent/Content Coach for JJIMS INC. and works with talent in many different industries. He can be reached at JJ-IMS.COM.