Episode 49

Ep49: Newfoundland Alternative music and CHMR with Johnny Nolan (Part 2)

This is the second part of our series on 80s and 90s alternative music from St. John's, Newfoundland with my friend Johnny Nolan. Today we feature music from Schizoid, Malpractice and The Reaction.

A special note: On April 1, 2026, and this is not an April Fool's Joke. The student's union at Memorial University voted to shut down CHMR.

In a day and age where voices are being muzzled around the world and avenues of expression being more and more controlled, I am saddened that a place that brought artists and journalists to Canada and the world will no longer exist.

I don't however think the battle is over. Please reach out to CHMR and MUNSU before June 1. If you disagree with CHMR being shut down, let your voice be heard. I am not in St. John's these days, make sure you don't lose a valuable asset to the community. Once something like this is gone, you can never really recover it. Does radio need to change with the times? Of course it does, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Featured music:

  1. Death Deliverer by Schizoid, Album Total Mayhem, courtesy of TeePee Records
  2. $1.44 day by Malpractice, courtesy of John Nolan and Malpractice
  3. On The Beach by The Reaction, courtesy of Mike Fisher and The Reaction

About the Podcast

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Tales under the cat tree: Conversations on Imagination, Tech & Human Adventure
Hosted by tech leader and storyteller Duleepa Wijayawardhana, this podcast explores the intersections of technology, fiction, and human adventure. Words create the worlds we live in—join us for weekly conversations that spark your imagination.

About your host

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Duleepa Wijayawardhana

It started with late nights, glue sticks, and a university newspaper / radio.

That early obsession with how words reach people took me from student journalism to a career spanning the globe. I’ve gone from designing newspapers and having radio shows to building systems at BioWare (yes, the RPG legends), managing data at MySQL, and now leading tech at Supermetrics in Helsinki.

But at my core, I’m still that geek who believes writing is just code for the human mind.

While a computer chip executes code exactly, your imagination runs stories based on your own unique wiring. Tales under the cat tree is where we run those programs together. Whether we're exploring the fiction that inspires us or the tech that defines us, my goal is to spark your imagination and—most importantly—never make you go "meh."

Words create the worlds we live in. Let's explore them.