If you're a fan of a particular artist, you want as much as you can get from that artist,you know, the albums, the singles, the t-shirts, all the downloads and all the swag and that's great when your favourite group releases an album.But with some bands going 234 or even more years between records, things get kind of dry. Now in the olden days, that was too bad distribution systems being what they were access to everything a band did was pretty much impossible.The access was tightly, tightly controlled, but the best you could hope for was for one of those rare elusive and highly legal bootleg records, unauthorized recordings issued by some shadowy label without the permission of the artist.Mostly these bootleg recordings featured live performances. After all, they were the easiest to make, but some contained stuff in the vaults that was never ever designed to be heard by anyone outside of the band's inner circle. Heck, some of this material wasn't even heard by the executives of the group's record label for years. We had this cat and mouse game between the labels and the artists and the bootleggers and hard core fans were right in the middle, waiting, hoping and praying that they could somehow get their hands on this stuff.Bootleggers moved offshore to places like Italy, Singapore and Indonesia where copyright laws were, uh shall we say a little looser?One of the great bootleg labels was called KTS. They were renowned for two things, super high quality live recordings that they got from somewhere and a wide selection of studio recordings that were never ever supposed to be released. I have a bunch of KTS releases and they are very, very good.Then along came the internet and the bootleg CD industry suddenly dried up pretty much overnight. Why bother putting out something that you had to manufacture in a Backstreet factory in China when you could just put it all online.Meanwhile, a strange thing happened with performers and managers instead of being all freaked out about this unfinished or unapproved stuff getting released into the wild by someone else, they started doing it themselves.I mean, why not use this material to forge a deeper relationship with their best customers, their biggest fans. The result has been an explosion of interesting material from some very big bands.And here's how you can track down some of it for yourself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you're a fan of a particular artist, you want as much as you can get from that artist,you know, the albums, the singles, the t-shirts, all the downloads and all the swag and that's great when your favourite group releases an album.But with some bands going 234 or even more years between records, things get kind of dry. Now in the olden days, that was too bad distribution systems being what they were access to everything a band did was pretty much impossible.The access was tightly, tightly controlled, but the best you could hope for was for one of those rare elusive and highly legal bootleg records, unauthorized recordings issued by some shadowy label without the permission of the artist.Mostly these bootleg recordings featured live performances. After all, they were the easiest to make, but some contained stuff in the vaults that was never ever designed to be heard by anyone outside of the band's inner circle. Heck, some of this material wasn't even heard by the executives of the group's record label for years. We had this cat and mouse game between the labels and the artists and the bootleggers and hard core fans were right in the middle, waiting, hoping and praying that they could somehow get their hands on this stuff.Bootleggers moved offshore to places like Italy, Singapore and Indonesia where copyright laws were, uh shall we say a little looser?One of the great bootleg labels was called KTS. They were renowned for two things, super high quality live recordings that they got from somewhere and a wide selection of studio recordings that were never ever supposed to be released. I have a bunch of KTS releases and they are very, very good.Then along came the internet and the bootleg CD industry suddenly dried up pretty much overnight. Why bother putting out something that you had to manufacture in a Backstreet factory in China when you could just put it all online.Meanwhile, a strange thing happened with performers and managers instead of being all freaked out about this unfinished or unapproved stuff getting released into the wild by someone else, they started doing it themselves.I mean, why not use this material to forge a deeper relationship with their best customers, their biggest fans. The result has been an explosion of interesting material from some very big bands.And here's how you can track down some of it for yourself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

Tracking Down Demos

There’s a fine line between “wonderful” and “weird”...things that are “wonderful” tend to inspire you with awe...you feel warmth and light and awe and admiration...and you may suddenly find yourself believing in goodness and a higher power...I saw a total solar eclipse once...that’s exactly how I felt...maybe you’ve had a similar experience...But just a few centimeters from “wonderful” is how you feel when you run across something that’s genuinely “weird”...you might still feel awed—but you might also experience disbelief, confusion, disgust...and you may even feel a little throw-up at the back of your throat...Or you might laugh...”Weird” fan be funny....or you might think that something “weird” is really, really cool...see, there’s good “weird” as well as bad... “wonderfully weird,” if you will...it’s all in the eye of the beholder...Let’s see where this stuff fits in with you...its part ten of “100 weird things about new rock”... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There’s a fine line between “wonderful” and “weird”...things that are “wonderful” tend to inspire you with awe...you feel warmth and light and awe and admiration...and you may suddenly find yourself believing in goodness and a higher power...I saw a total solar eclipse once...that’s exactly how I felt...maybe you’ve had a similar experience...But just a few centimeters from “wonderful” is how you feel when you run across something that’s genuinely “weird”...you might still feel awed—but you might also experience disbelief, confusion, disgust...and you may even feel a little throw-up at the back of your throat...Or you might laugh...”Weird” fan be funny....or you might think that something “weird” is really, really cool...see, there’s good “weird” as well as bad... “wonderfully weird,” if you will...it’s all in the eye of the beholder...Let’s see where this stuff fits in with you...its part ten of “100 weird things about new rock”... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

100 weirdest Things in Alt-Rock: Part 10

Money is a weird thing...when you don’t have it, it’s all you can think about...when you do have it, it’s the last thing on your mind...It’s gotta be especially weird for successful musicians...99.9% of all rock performers come from very modest backgrounds...for years, they make sacrifices for their art, hoping and praying that one day, they won’t have to worry about where their next meal comes from or how they’re gonna manage to pay the rent....But 99.99% of professional musicians will never hit the big time...they may make an okay living, but they’ll never be rich...But what about that 1/100th of 1 per cent that do hit the big time?...for them, life changes a lot and it changes fast...suddenly, they’re able to do and have things that they never even dreamed of...Some can handle it and ease into the über-rich lifestyle with elegance and grace...others–well, not so much...others still use their positions to do strange, excessive and occasionally destructive things...And, not surprisingly, things on all sides of the ledger can get quite weird...This is part 9 of “100 weird things about new rock”...it’s 10 tales of wealth, success and excess. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Money is a weird thing...when you don’t have it, it’s all you can think about...when you do have it, it’s the last thing on your mind...It’s gotta be especially weird for successful musicians...99.9% of all rock performers come from very modest backgrounds...for years, they make sacrifices for their art, hoping and praying that one day, they won’t have to worry about where their next meal comes from or how they’re gonna manage to pay the rent....But 99.99% of professional musicians will never hit the big time...they may make an okay living, but they’ll never be rich...But what about that 1/100th of 1 per cent that do hit the big time?...for them, life changes a lot and it changes fast...suddenly, they’re able to do and have things that they never even dreamed of...Some can handle it and ease into the über-rich lifestyle with elegance and grace...others–well, not so much...others still use their positions to do strange, excessive and occasionally destructive things...And, not surprisingly, things on all sides of the ledger can get quite weird...This is part 9 of “100 weird things about new rock”...it’s 10 tales of wealth, success and excess. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

100 Weirdest Things in Alt-Rock: Part 9

The standard musical diet consists of three things: sex, drugs and rock’n’roll....all three of these stapes affect the same areas of the brain...We’ve talked about this before, but here’s a quick refresher course in neuroscience...In your head, you have the amygdala, the cerebellum and the nucleus accumbens...they’re involved in the process of creating and regulating dopamine, which is the hormone that makes you feel good...These regions analyze what’s going on when you have an orgasm, take cocaine or listen to a great song...dopamine is released into the bloodstream, which is a signal to the rest of the body that says, “this is good!  Let’s have more!”...Needless to say, dopamine is a pretty addictive hormone...mix music and drugs and you’re heading down a slippery slope...as we’ve seen many times–including earlier this in this year–things can get very weird very quickly...But musicians taking drugs is often a very solitary and personal thing...with sex, other people are involved...most of the time...but then again, we are talking about weirdness, aren’t we?You might want get the kids and grandma to do something else for the next hour...this is “100 weird things about new rock, part 8"–and the topic what happens when new rock and alternative music mixes with weird sex... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The standard musical diet consists of three things: sex, drugs and rock’n’roll....all three of these stapes affect the same areas of the brain...We’ve talked about this before, but here’s a quick refresher course in neuroscience...In your head, you have the amygdala, the cerebellum and the nucleus accumbens...they’re involved in the process of creating and regulating dopamine, which is the hormone that makes you feel good...These regions analyze what’s going on when you have an orgasm, take cocaine or listen to a great song...dopamine is released into the bloodstream, which is a signal to the rest of the body that says, “this is good!  Let’s have more!”...Needless to say, dopamine is a pretty addictive hormone...mix music and drugs and you’re heading down a slippery slope...as we’ve seen many times–including earlier this in this year–things can get very weird very quickly...But musicians taking drugs is often a very solitary and personal thing...with sex, other people are involved...most of the time...but then again, we are talking about weirdness, aren’t we?You might want get the kids and grandma to do something else for the next hour...this is “100 weird things about new rock, part 8"–and the topic what happens when new rock and alternative music mixes with weird sex... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

100 Weirdest Things in Alt-Rock: Part 8

It is a fact of human nature that those given the power to make rules that govern the behavior the rest of us will devote their lives to making and enforcing those rules...Most of the time, that’s a good thing...if you murder someone in cold blood and you’re caught, you’ll face justice...robbery is illegal...and so is owning a pig in France and calling it “napoleon”...No, seriously...it’s against the law to name your pig “napoleon” if you live in France...in California, women may not operate an automobile while wearing a house coat...and in Canada, it’s apparently illegal to remove a bandage in public....who knew?...Then there are all the weird lawsuits–like the dry cleaners who were sued for $54 million for losing a pair of pants...or the American politician who filed a suit against god for causing natural disasters and inspiring terrorists...And then there are all the tiny legal nuances that either allow cases to proceed or have them dismissed on a technicality—hello, O.J. Simpson...The world of rock is not immune to legal foibles...crimes, felonies, misdemeanors, weird lawsuits, legal charges, jail time–the works...Which got me thinking: what are the weirdest intersections of the law and new rock of all time?...I came up with a list of ten....This is “100 weird things about new rock, part 7: 10 stories from the legal files:...  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It is a fact of human nature that those given the power to make rules that govern the behavior the rest of us will devote their lives to making and enforcing those rules...Most of the time, that’s a good thing...if you murder someone in cold blood and you’re caught, you’ll face justice...robbery is illegal...and so is owning a pig in France and calling it “napoleon”...No, seriously...it’s against the law to name your pig “napoleon” if you live in France...in California, women may not operate an automobile while wearing a house coat...and in Canada, it’s apparently illegal to remove a bandage in public....who knew?...Then there are all the weird lawsuits–like the dry cleaners who were sued for $54 million for losing a pair of pants...or the American politician who filed a suit against god for causing natural disasters and inspiring terrorists...And then there are all the tiny legal nuances that either allow cases to proceed or have them dismissed on a technicality—hello, O.J. Simpson...The world of rock is not immune to legal foibles...crimes, felonies, misdemeanors, weird lawsuits, legal charges, jail time–the works...Which got me thinking: what are the weirdest intersections of the law and new rock of all time?...I came up with a list of ten....This is “100 weird things about new rock, part 7: 10 stories from the legal files:...  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

100 Weirdest Things in Alt-Rock: Part 7

I think we take music for granted...as much as we love it; we also treat it like something disposable...And I don’t if we can be blamed for it...I mean, there’s just so much music out there...there’s a never-ending supply...We hear a song...we evaluate it–sometimes in less than 3 seconds–and then we either accept or reject the song...and if we accept it, we’ll listen to it only until something better comes along...We seldom stop to think about all the effort–the time, the inspiration, the emotion, the skill, the technology, the money–that went into creating that one song...While music can be written and created anywhere, you need a recording studio to preserve it, to put it into a form in which it can be duplicated and then distributed to the world so we–the fans–can finally get to hear it...And recording studios can be weird places...confining windowless rooms where time seems to lose all meaning...yet the goal is to capture the energy of a live performance...In other words, there’s a lot that can happen between the time a songwriter feels that creative flash and we finally get to hear the end result...and yes, it can get very, very weird along the way...This is part 6 of “100 weird things about new rock”...I call this episode “studio stories”... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I think we take music for granted...as much as we love it; we also treat it like something disposable...And I don’t if we can be blamed for it...I mean, there’s just so much music out there...there’s a never-ending supply...We hear a song...we evaluate it–sometimes in less than 3 seconds–and then we either accept or reject the song...and if we accept it, we’ll listen to it only until something better comes along...We seldom stop to think about all the effort–the time, the inspiration, the emotion, the skill, the technology, the money–that went into creating that one song...While music can be written and created anywhere, you need a recording studio to preserve it, to put it into a form in which it can be duplicated and then distributed to the world so we–the fans–can finally get to hear it...And recording studios can be weird places...confining windowless rooms where time seems to lose all meaning...yet the goal is to capture the energy of a live performance...In other words, there’s a lot that can happen between the time a songwriter feels that creative flash and we finally get to hear the end result...and yes, it can get very, very weird along the way...This is part 6 of “100 weird things about new rock”...I call this episode “studio stories”... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

100 Weirdest Things in Alt-Rock: Part 6

Some things just go together naturally...A nice sauterne is a fine companion to foie gras that is served with fruit compote...or, if that’s too rich, strawberry jam works well in a sandwich with peanut butter...And, as even the most casual observer knows that rock music often comes with side order of drugs...In case you haven’t noticed, rock and drugs often have some kind of symbiotic relationship...I mean, the self-appointed moralists who want to sanitize life for the rest of us kinda have a point...the world of rock’n’roll is filled with stories of druggy excess and the kind of misery only drugs can offer...A lot of lives have been ruined or ended by that dangerous combination of rock music and drugs...and more often than not, things can get really weird...really weird...I have ten stories where rock and drugs have intersected with very strange results...It’s part five of “100 weird things about new rock”... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some things just go together naturally...A nice sauterne is a fine companion to foie gras that is served with fruit compote...or, if that’s too rich, strawberry jam works well in a sandwich with peanut butter...And, as even the most casual observer knows that rock music often comes with side order of drugs...In case you haven’t noticed, rock and drugs often have some kind of symbiotic relationship...I mean, the self-appointed moralists who want to sanitize life for the rest of us kinda have a point...the world of rock’n’roll is filled with stories of druggy excess and the kind of misery only drugs can offer...A lot of lives have been ruined or ended by that dangerous combination of rock music and drugs...and more often than not, things can get really weird...really weird...I have ten stories where rock and drugs have intersected with very strange results...It’s part five of “100 weird things about new rock”... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

100 Weirdest Things in Alt-Rock: Part 5

From the outside, being in a famous touring rock band seems like a glamourous thing...you travel the world, playing for thousands of adoring fans night after night with your gang of buddies...Oh, the gloriousness of it all...the private jets!...the media exposure!...the excitement!...the perks!...the sites!...the sex!...the drugs!...your every whim catered to by people whose job is to, well, cater to your every whim...And that really is the reality–for maybe the top 1/10 of one per cent of groups in the world...for other 99.9%, going on the road is a trying ordeal that can get pretty uncomfortable real fast...I mean, think about it...for the entire time you’re on tour, you’re living in a bubble, going where you’re told to go, doing what you’re told to do and living out of suitcases for months on end...You can wake up in the van or the bus one morning after the gig and quite literally have no idea what country you’re in, let alone what city...Then there’s the bad food, the interviews with the same stupid questions all the time, annoying fans, the late nights, too much alcohol, too many drugs and not enough sleep...The only thing that makes it all worthwhile is the fact you get to play every night...but even that gets old after a while...all you want to do is go home, do the laundry and finally be left alone for a while...With that kind of working environment, life on the road can get pretty weird...how weird?...let us count the ways... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the outside, being in a famous touring rock band seems like a glamourous thing...you travel the world, playing for thousands of adoring fans night after night with your gang of buddies...Oh, the gloriousness of it all...the private jets!...the media exposure!...the excitement!...the perks!...the sites!...the sex!...the drugs!...your every whim catered to by people whose job is to, well, cater to your every whim...And that really is the reality–for maybe the top 1/10 of one per cent of groups in the world...for other 99.9%, going on the road is a trying ordeal that can get pretty uncomfortable real fast...I mean, think about it...for the entire time you’re on tour, you’re living in a bubble, going where you’re told to go, doing what you’re told to do and living out of suitcases for months on end...You can wake up in the van or the bus one morning after the gig and quite literally have no idea what country you’re in, let alone what city...Then there’s the bad food, the interviews with the same stupid questions all the time, annoying fans, the late nights, too much alcohol, too many drugs and not enough sleep...The only thing that makes it all worthwhile is the fact you get to play every night...but even that gets old after a while...all you want to do is go home, do the laundry and finally be left alone for a while...With that kind of working environment, life on the road can get pretty weird...how weird?...let us count the ways... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

100 Weirdest Things in Alt-Rock: Part 4

This historical, true crime podcast hosted by Kru Williams from History Television's hit original series Deadman’s Curse: The Legend of the Lost Gold investigates the curse and legend surrounding the lost gold mine of Pitt Lake.On their quest they're joined by members of the Stó:lō and Katzie First Nations, historians and cultural experts of diverse backgrounds, as they sort fact from fiction and give Slumach a voice from the other side of the veil.You'll hear about how an Indigenous prospector, accused of murder set a curse on anyone who searched for his hidden gold just before he was hanged. Over a century later, a prospector, a mountaineer, a truth-seeker and a way-shower band together to walk the same paths of those who went looking for Slumach’s cursed gold and never returned find how a single bullet was the catalyst for a 150-year-old mystery.Click here to find it on your favourite podcast app. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This historical, true crime podcast hosted by Kru Williams from History Television's hit original series Deadman’s Curse: The Legend of the Lost Gold investigates the curse and legend surrounding the lost gold mine of Pitt Lake.On their quest they're joined by members of the Stó:lō and Katzie First Nations, historians and cultural experts of diverse backgrounds, as they sort fact from fiction and give Slumach a voice from the other side of the veil.You'll hear about how an Indigenous prospector, accused of murder set a curse on anyone who searched for his hidden gold just before he was hanged. Over a century later, a prospector, a mountaineer, a truth-seeker and a way-shower band together to walk the same paths of those who went looking for Slumach’s cursed gold and never returned find how a single bullet was the catalyst for a 150-year-old mystery.<a href="https://link.chtbl.com/deadmans-curse" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Click here</a> to find it on your favourite podcast app. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

Introducing... Deadman's Curse: Slumach's Gold

If you’re listening to this show, you are a music fan...any arguments?...probably not...“fan” is short for “fanatic”–a person who is extremely passionate and enthusiastic about something...could be sports, could be movies, could be music...and fans tend to be reasonably uncritical about the objects of their affection...         But all “fanaticism”–and we’re using the proper dictionary terms here–is not the same...we can go from being a casual fan of something to being a devotee...but then “fan” gives away to the negative connotations of “fanatic,” all the way up to “zealot” and “militant”...this is where things get unbalanced, obsessive and dangerous...If you’re a public figure—say, a famous musician–your whole goal is to attract fans...your whole life is about finding people who really, really like what you do....The problem is, however, that with the good come the weirdo’s...and this is where things can get very, very strange...This is part three of “100 weird things about new rock”...ten tales of fans, stalkers and the downright crazy... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you’re listening to this show, you are a music fan...any arguments?...probably not...“fan” is short for “fanatic”–a person who is extremely passionate and enthusiastic about something...could be sports, could be movies, could be music...and fans tend to be reasonably uncritical about the objects of their affection...         But all “fanaticism”–and we’re using the proper dictionary terms here–is not the same...we can go from being a casual fan of something to being a devotee...but then “fan” gives away to the negative connotations of “fanatic,” all the way up to “zealot” and “militant”...this is where things get unbalanced, obsessive and dangerous...If you’re a public figure—say, a famous musician–your whole goal is to attract fans...your whole life is about finding people who really, really like what you do....The problem is, however, that with the good come the weirdo’s...and this is where things can get very, very strange...This is part three of “100 weird things about new rock”...ten tales of fans, stalkers and the downright crazy... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

100 Weirdest Things in Alt-Rock: Part 3

Ongoing History of New Music looks at things from the alt-rock universe to hip hop, from artist profiles to various thematic explorations. It is Canada’s most well known music documentary hosted by the legendary Alan Cross. Whatever the episode, you’re definitely going to learn something that you might not find anywhere else. Trust us on this.

Love, love, love this podcast! Very informative and entertaining!

Amazing.

This show is incredible! It is so entertaining and informative at the same time!

Incredible

Ongoing History of New Music

How long should we wait before we write the history of a decade?...we can write things down as they happen, but that’s only the first draft…time has to pass before we can wrap our heads around exactly what happened, what it all meant, and the lasting effects of those ten years… Something that may have appeared to be insignificant at the time turned out to be a really big deal…it was only after many years passed and the ripples from that thing or that event played out do we realize “holy crap!...that was history!”… When it comes to the history of music, it’s often convenient to break things down into decades because that seems to be the natural order of things…music is a great barometer of the life and times of a decade because it’s so intertwined with society: politics, economics, demographics—everything to do with culture…understand the music of a decade and you’ll have a better understanding of what happened during that time… The 50s marked the birth of rock’n’roll…the 60s brought us The Beatles, the rise of the album, and the mega rock festival…in the 70s, we got punk, metal, disco, and rap…the 80s?...techno-pop, hair metal, and the era of classic rock…the 90s were all about grunge, the Lollpalooza generation, Britpop… That takes us to the end of the 20thcentury…and as transformative and disruptive as the 90s were—the Internet, cell phones, sampling—that was only a warm-up for the next ten years…by the time it was over, everything had changed… This is a history that first decade of the 21stcentury, which we’re going to call “the oughts”…this is part 1… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How long should we wait before we write the history of a decade?...we can write things down as they happen, but that’s only the first draft…time has to pass before we can wrap our heads around exactly what happened, what it all meant, and the lasting effects of those ten years… Something that may have appeared to be insignificant at the time turned out to be a really big deal…it was only after many years passed and the ripples from that thing or that event played out do we realize “holy crap!...that was history!”… When it comes to the history of music, it’s often convenient to break things down into decades because that seems to be the natural order of things…music is a great barometer of the life and times of a decade because it’s so intertwined with society: politics, economics, demographics—everything to do with culture…understand the music of a decade and you’ll have a better understanding of what happened during that time… The 50s marked the birth of rock’n’roll…the 60s brought us The Beatles, the rise of the album, and the mega rock festival…in the 70s, we got punk, metal, disco, and rap…the 80s?...techno-pop, hair metal, and the era of classic rock…the 90s were all about grunge, the Lollpalooza generation, Britpop… That takes us to the end of the 20thcentury…and as transformative and disruptive as the 90s were—the Internet, cell phones, sampling—that was only a warm-up for the next ten years…by the time it was over, everything had changed… This is a history that first decade of the 21stcentury, which we’re going to call “the oughts”…this is part 1… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

The 00's Part 1: The Sad State of Rock

I have a long list of music-related facts that came to my attention this year…many of them were incorporated in various “ongoing history” programs over the last 12 months…but there’s also a lot of orphaned stuff—material that is interesting and fascinating but didn’t make it into any program for whatever reason… Maybe they didn’t fit into any of this year’s topics…maybe it was too off-brand…maybe they were just too “out there”… But this research will not go to waste…i have distilled this information to a tight list of 60 so i may present them to you…this is the fifth annual edition of “60 mind-blowing facts in 60 minutes”…. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I have a long list of music-related facts that came to my attention this year…many of them were incorporated in various “ongoing history” programs over the last 12 months…but there’s also a lot of orphaned stuff—material that is interesting and fascinating but didn’t make it into any program for whatever reason… Maybe they didn’t fit into any of this year’s topics…maybe it was too off-brand…maybe they were just too “out there”… But this research will not go to waste…i have distilled this information to a tight list of 60 so i may present them to you…this is the fifth annual edition of “60 mind-blowing facts in 60 minutes”…. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

60 Mind Blowing Facts in 60 Minutes: The 5th Edition

In times of crisis, we start to look for a leader, someone who can get us out of trouble…this is a trope of every comic book universe movie and half all the action-adventure stuff… But it’s true…when things are bad, we first look to people with experience, with knowledge, with strength to lead us away from whatever is wrong… There was a lot of this sort of talk among rock fans at the end of the 90s…pop, electronica, and hip-hop had taken over…rock itself had fallen into the doldrums and every fan was hoping, praying that someone or something would come along and inject new life into the genre… And as hopeless as some people felt at the time, sometimes you just gotta be patient…a couple of things inevitably happen when it seems that rock is on the ropes… First, a new generation of young people decide to take matters into their own hands and kick-start things themselves…we saw this with the indie rock revolution that started taking hold in the very late 90s and then exploded for the next decade… Second, trends and cycles in music and demographics inevitably start to work in favour of the music you like…for the previous 50 years, when rock was on the descent, pop was on the ascent—and vice versa…in the early 2000s, it was time for that polar shift in the public’s tastes… And third, sometimes the old guard needs a little time to catch their breath, to take the lay of the land, and to figure out what their next moves should be…and if they do it right, their careers move into a new phase, a new act… This exactly is what happened in the first half of the first decade of the 21stcentury…and the results were amazing…this is the history of the oughts, part 3: the return of rock… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In times of crisis, we start to look for a leader, someone who can get us out of trouble…this is a trope of every comic book universe movie and half all the action-adventure stuff… But it’s true…when things are bad, we first look to people with experience, with knowledge, with strength to lead us away from whatever is wrong… There was a lot of this sort of talk among rock fans at the end of the 90s…pop, electronica, and hip-hop had taken over…rock itself had fallen into the doldrums and every fan was hoping, praying that someone or something would come along and inject new life into the genre… And as hopeless as some people felt at the time, sometimes you just gotta be patient…a couple of things inevitably happen when it seems that rock is on the ropes… First, a new generation of young people decide to take matters into their own hands and kick-start things themselves…we saw this with the indie rock revolution that started taking hold in the very late 90s and then exploded for the next decade… Second, trends and cycles in music and demographics inevitably start to work in favour of the music you like…for the previous 50 years, when rock was on the descent, pop was on the ascent—and vice versa…in the early 2000s, it was time for that polar shift in the public’s tastes… And third, sometimes the old guard needs a little time to catch their breath, to take the lay of the land, and to figure out what their next moves should be…and if they do it right, their careers move into a new phase, a new act… This exactly is what happened in the first half of the first decade of the 21stcentury…and the results were amazing…this is the history of the oughts, part 3: the return of rock… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

The 00's Part 3: The Return of Rock

There was nothing particular special about April 8, 1994…I came to work as usual, saw the usual people, and prepared for my radio show in the usual way…I made note that the Toronto Blue Jays were playing a sold-out home game…one of the stories in the news was that American troops were upset about a smoking ban that had come into effect on some military bases…that was about it… But at about 1:45—fifteen minutes before airtime—Anita, who was working in the newsroom—popped her into the studio… “Just a heads-up,” she said, “something’s going on in Seattle…it looks like it has something to do with Kurt Cobain”… If I’m honest, most of us were prepared for some bad news…we knew that Kurt had his issues…his health problems…his heroin addiction…his crazy marriage to Courtney Love…the canceled European tour…and, of course, an apparent suicide attempt in a Rome hotel room about a month earlier… Still, all that was abstract, gossip, stories in magazines…but over the next 90 minutes, everything resolved into harsh, terrible, awful, reality… If you were around then, you probably remember exactly where you were and what you were doing when you heard the news… it was one of those rare, rare moments, the same sort of thing felt with the assassination of John Lennon on Monday, December 8, 1980, and the death of Elvis on Tuesday, August 16, 1977…. Was that really 25 years ago?...yes, it was…if you were there, let’s revisit things…if you weren’t, here’s how dramatic and sad it was…this is Kurt Cobain, 25 years after he died… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There was nothing particular special about April 8, 1994…I came to work as usual, saw the usual people, and prepared for my radio show in the usual way…I made note that the Toronto Blue Jays were playing a sold-out home game…one of the stories in the news was that American troops were upset about a smoking ban that had come into effect on some military bases…that was about it… But at about 1:45—fifteen minutes before airtime—Anita, who was working in the newsroom—popped her into the studio… “Just a heads-up,” she said, “something’s going on in Seattle…it looks like it has something to do with Kurt Cobain”… If I’m honest, most of us were prepared for some bad news…we knew that Kurt had his issues…his health problems…his heroin addiction…his crazy marriage to Courtney Love…the canceled European tour…and, of course, an apparent suicide attempt in a Rome hotel room about a month earlier… Still, all that was abstract, gossip, stories in magazines…but over the next 90 minutes, everything resolved into harsh, terrible, awful, reality… If you were around then, you probably remember exactly where you were and what you were doing when you heard the news… it was one of those rare, rare moments, the same sort of thing felt with the assassination of John Lennon on Monday, December 8, 1980, and the death of Elvis on Tuesday, August 16, 1977…. Was that really 25 years ago?...yes, it was…if you were there, let’s revisit things…if you weren’t, here’s how dramatic and sad it was…this is Kurt Cobain, 25 years after he died… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

Kurt Cobain: 25 Years Later

Is it just me or has there been an uptick in the number of one-hit-wonders over the past couple of years?...think about all the hot bands who have had just one good album–or even just one good song–before they’re forgotten... In the old days, a group developed and evolved over a series of albums...three, four, five, six records, even...it was slow and look a lot of patience and a lot of fighting to keep things together, but more often than not, it paid off...look at U2...or REM...or Blur...or Depeche Mode...or Nine Inch Nails... None of these bands was what you’d called immediate, instant, hit-it-out-of-the-park successes...each group was allowed to build a career the old-fashioned way: slowly and carefully...and most importantly, they were allowed to make mistakes along the way... Oh–you know who we missed in that list of bands?...Radiohead... They started slow–really slow...they’ve made a bunch of mistakes...they’ve conducted a lot of experiments–some successful, some failures...but because they’ve stuck together, because they’ve always believed in their mission, and most of all, because they all happen to be exceptional musicians, Radiohead has become one of the most revered, most influential and most analyzed groups in the history of alt-rock… And that’s not all…along the way, they’ve managed to rewrite a lot of the rules about what a band is and isn’t supposed to do… This is the story of Radiohead got to where they are today… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is it just me or has there been an uptick in the number of one-hit-wonders over the past couple of years?...think about all the hot bands who have had just one good album–or even just one good song–before they’re forgotten... In the old days, a group developed and evolved over a series of albums...three, four, five, six records, even...it was slow and look a lot of patience and a lot of fighting to keep things together, but more often than not, it paid off...look at U2...or REM...or Blur...or Depeche Mode...or Nine Inch Nails... None of these bands was what you’d called immediate, instant, hit-it-out-of-the-park successes...each group was allowed to build a career the old-fashioned way: slowly and carefully...and most importantly, they were allowed to make mistakes along the way... Oh–you know who we missed in that list of bands?...Radiohead... They started slow–really slow...they’ve made a bunch of mistakes...they’ve conducted a lot of experiments–some successful, some failures...but because they’ve stuck together, because they’ve always believed in their mission, and most of all, because they all happen to be exceptional musicians, Radiohead has become one of the most revered, most influential and most analyzed groups in the history of alt-rock… And that’s not all…along the way, they’ve managed to rewrite a lot of the rules about what a band is and isn’t supposed to do… This is the story of Radiohead got to where they are today… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

Radiohead - A History: Part 1

At the end of the 90s, rock music was deep in the doldrums…fans were genuinely worried for its future…and it did look bleak, especially in contrast to how exciting things had been earlier in the decade… But in ’98 and ’99, rock was under assault on three sides…pop music was king and the whole world had gone crazy for those sounds…then there was rap and hip-hop, which kept getting more popular and stronger every month…and then there was electronica, which was siphoning away rock fans to go dance in a warehouse somewhere… Like I said, it was dire…and lots of rock fans were despondent…it was around then, when rock music was deep in the doldrums, that I wrote a newspaper op-ed…it was a pep talk of sorts…it was called “Britney Spears, the end is nigh”… Basically, I said “there are cycles in music that go back to the 1950s…they describe a fight between rock and pop…when one is at its height, the other is at its low in terms of popularity…yes, pop is hot right now, but rock will come back…and of you look at the history of these cycles, rock should be ready for a big comeback in about two years”…   Turns out I was right…and the artists to lead the comeback were a bunch of young unknowns with fresh ideas…   This is part two of our look at the music of the oughts…I call this episode “the indie revolution”… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At the end of the 90s, rock music was deep in the doldrums…fans were genuinely worried for its future…and it did look bleak, especially in contrast to how exciting things had been earlier in the decade… But in ’98 and ’99, rock was under assault on three sides…pop music was king and the whole world had gone crazy for those sounds…then there was rap and hip-hop, which kept getting more popular and stronger every month…and then there was electronica, which was siphoning away rock fans to go dance in a warehouse somewhere… Like I said, it was dire…and lots of rock fans were despondent…it was around then, when rock music was deep in the doldrums, that I wrote a newspaper op-ed…it was a pep talk of sorts…it was called “Britney Spears, the end is nigh”… Basically, I said “there are cycles in music that go back to the 1950s…they describe a fight between rock and pop…when one is at its height, the other is at its low in terms of popularity…yes, pop is hot right now, but rock will come back…and of you look at the history of these cycles, rock should be ready for a big comeback in about two years”… Turns out I was right…and the artists to lead the comeback were a bunch of young unknowns with fresh ideas… This is part two of our look at the music of the oughts…I call this episode “the indie revolution”… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

The 00's Part 2: The Indie Revolution

As someone who churns out tens of thousands of words a week—everything from emails to blog posts to business documents to these radio scripts—I’ve developed a fascination with words and, for whatever reason, names…especially the origins of names… The study of word origins is “etymology”…and the study of name origins is “onomastics”… Take, for example the name Ignatius…this is an ancient name dating back to the Etruscans, the civilization before the romans…a lot of dudes were named “Ignatius” over the centuries… When Spanish came along, it morphed into Ignacio, which was often abbreviated to “Nacho”…fast-forward to 1943…Ignacio Anaya lived in Piedras Negras, which is just over the border from Eagle Pass, Texas, home to a U.S. military base… One night some American soldiers came to his restaurant looking for something to eat…with almost nothing in the kitchen, he wiped something up featuring deep-friend tortillas cut into triangles, covered in cheese and served pickled jalapeno peppers…the soldiers loved the improvised snack so much that they named it after their host: Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya… But there’s another part to the Ignatius story….back over in Europe in Bavaria, Ignatius transformed into Ignatz…the short form for that was “Nazi”…this is how “Nazi” came to denote a backwards peasant from the Bavarian countryside… This is the same part of Germany that gave rise to a political party called “nationalsocializmus” led by a guy called Adolph Hitler….those who thought Hitler was a clown, abbreviated “nationalsocializmus” to “Nazi” as a way of calling the party a bunch of boobs…it was a taunt, an insult… But Hilter and his crew turned everything around and took the term “Nazi” as their own and—well, things turned out badly for the planet… But isn’t that kind of cool?...there’s a connection between something as diverse as German fascists and a plate of junk food that’s great for hangovers… What if we apply this sort of scholarly etymological and onomastical research to the names of musical groups?...let’s do that…hang on…a lot of data is about to come your way… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As someone who churns out tens of thousands of words a week—everything from emails to blog posts to business documents to these radio scripts—I’ve developed a fascination with words and, for whatever reason, names…especially the origins of names… The study of word origins is “etymology”…and the study of name origins is “onomastics”… Take, for example the name Ignatius…this is an ancient name dating back to the Etruscans, the civilization before the romans…a lot of dudes were named “Ignatius” over the centuries… When Spanish came along, it morphed into Ignacio, which was often abbreviated to “Nacho”…fast-forward to 1943…Ignacio Anaya lived in Piedras Negras, which is just over the border from Eagle Pass, Texas, home to a U.S. military base… One night some American soldiers came to his restaurant looking for something to eat…with almost nothing in the kitchen, he wiped something up featuring deep-friend tortillas cut into triangles, covered in cheese and served pickled jalapeno peppers…the soldiers loved the improvised snack so much that they named it after their host: Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya… But there’s another part to the Ignatius story….back over in Europe in Bavaria, Ignatius transformed into Ignatz…the short form for that was “Nazi”…this is how “Nazi” came to denote a backwards peasant from the Bavarian countryside… This is the same part of Germany that gave rise to a political party called “nationalsocializmus” led by a guy called Adolph Hitler….those who thought Hitler was a clown, abbreviated “nationalsocializmus” to “Nazi” as a way of calling the party a bunch of boobs…it was a taunt, an insult… But Hilter and his crew turned everything around and took the term “Nazi” as their own and—well, things turned out badly for the planet… But isn’t that kind of cool?...there’s a connection between something as diverse as German fascists and a plate of junk food that’s great for hangovers… What if we apply this sort of scholarly etymological and onomastical research to the names of musical groups?...let’s do that…hang on…a lot of data is about to come your way… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

60 Band Name Origins in 60 Minutes

Myths and legends come in all sizes…Atlantis…that’s a big one that we can’t seem to wrap our heads around…but maybe homer was just yanking our chain… “feed a cold, starve a fever”…turns out that’s wrong…depriving yourself of calories may make it harder for your body to fight off that infection or virus… “we only ever use 10% of our brain”…wrong…neuroscience has proven that to be false…the right number may be 20%--but there’s a lot of dispute over that… Here are some other myths I’ve run across…don’t feed pigeons uncooked rice or they’ll blow up…the great wall of china isn’t the only man-made object that can be seen from space…and you can’t certainly see it from the moon… Oh—and the “fact” that men think about sex every seconds…untrue…it happens a lot every day, but there’s no basis in any scientific literature that it happens every seven seconds…we’d never get anything done… There are also myths and legends in music, too…Robert Johnson’ pact with the devil at the crossroads…Gene Simmons of Kiss did not have a cow tongue grafted onto his…Jim Morrison, Biggie, Tupac and Elvis are most certainly very dead…but Paul McCartney is still very much alive… But what about the alt-rock word?...what kind of myths and legends lurk there…stick around…you may be very, very surprised… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Myths and legends come in all sizes…Atlantis…that’s a big one that we can’t seem to wrap our heads around…but maybe homer was just yanking our chain… “feed a cold, starve a fever”…turns out that’s wrong…depriving yourself of calories may make it harder for your body to fight off that infection or virus… “we only ever use 10% of our brain”…wrong…neuroscience has proven that to be false…the right number may be 20%--but there’s a lot of dispute over that… Here are some other myths I’ve run across…don’t feed pigeons uncooked rice or they’ll blow up…the great wall of china isn’t the only man-made object that can be seen from space…and you can’t certainly see it from the moon… Oh—and the “fact” that men think about sex every seconds…untrue…it happens a lot every day, but there’s no basis in any scientific literature that it happens every seven seconds…we’d never get anything done… There are also myths and legends in music, too…Robert Johnson’ pact with the devil at the crossroads…Gene Simmons of Kiss did not have a cow tongue grafted onto his…Jim Morrison, Biggie, Tupac and Elvis are most certainly very dead…but Paul McCartney is still very much alive… But what about the alt-rock word?...what kind of myths and legends lurk there…stick around…you may be very, very surprised… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

Rock And Roll Myths

This time we take a deep dive into the history of Mumford and Sons...the earliest and mostly unknown aspects of their career.  If you're a superman...you might already know some of this. Or maybe not! Lots to digest in this episode.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This time we take a deep dive into the history of Mumford and Sons...the earliest and mostly unknown aspects of their career.  If you're a superman...you might already know some of this. Or maybe not! Lots to digest in this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

Mumford and Sons

Writing history takes a very long time…sure, you could write down everything as it happens, but that’s really only like writing a diary…you only have a record of events—which is fine…but real history, meaningful history is something more… To understand what happened in the past, more time has to go by so that we can observe the ripples events have the world…it’s only by examining those ripples that we begin to understand what’s happening in the present and what could happen in the future… It’s often helpful and convenient to look at the past by decade…that’s certainly a favourite way to do things with music…in fact, that’s how we like to categorize music history… If I say “50s music,” you know exactly what I mean…if we move to the music of the 1960s, same thing…the names or artists and songs leap to mind, just as they do if I said we’re going to talk about the 70s or 80s… But what about the 1990s?...what comes to mind on that branch of music history?...grunge, Britpop, raves, electronica generation x, hip hop, sampling, cell phones, personal computers, the internet, MP3s, music piracy… The 90s were a transformational decade, in so many ways, the end of the way music used to be and the beginning of what it would become in the next millennium…many people have come to the conclusion that the 90s were the last great decade for music… Is that true?...now that enough time has passed, we can now look back on the 90s to help us understand where we are today… And if we’re going to be successful at that, we’re gonna need to spread this investigation over out over a lot of shows… These are the 1990s, part 1… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Writing history takes a very long time…sure, you could write down everything as it happens, but that’s really only like writing a diary…you only have a record of events—which is fine…but real history, meaningful history is something more… To understand what happened in the past, more time has to go by so that we can observe the ripples events have the world…it’s only by examining those ripples that we begin to understand what’s happening in the present and what could happen in the future… It’s often helpful and convenient to look at the past by decade…that’s certainly a favourite way to do things with music…in fact, that’s how we like to categorize music history… If I say “50s music,” you know exactly what I mean…if we move to the music of the 1960s, same thing…the names or artists and songs leap to mind, just as they do if I said we’re going to talk about the 70s or 80s… But what about the 1990s?...what comes to mind on that branch of music history?...grunge, Britpop, raves, electronica generation x, hip hop, sampling, cell phones, personal computers, the internet, MP3s, music piracy… The 90s were a transformational decade, in so many ways, the end of the way music used to be and the beginning of what it would become in the next millennium…many people have come to the conclusion that the 90s were the last great decade for music… Is that true?...now that enough time has passed, we can now look back on the 90s to help us understand where we are today… And if we’re going to be successful at that, we’re gonna need to spread this investigation over out over a lot of shows… These are the 1990s, part 1… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

The 90's Part 1: Foundational Changes

Maybe it was the first time you saw your favourite musical. Maybe they played a set list that you thought was perfection. Maybe you were front and centre and the singer crowd surfed right over your head! So sure...an absolutely legendary gig! But what about those gigs that redefined alt-rock? Those concerts or shows that stand out as legendary for what came after them? The bands they inspired or the lasting legacy of that show on the audience? Well we're going take a look at 8 of them and try to explain why they are so legendary in the history of alt-rock Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maybe it was the first time you saw your favourite musical. Maybe they played a set list that you thought was perfection. Maybe you were front and centre and the singer crowd surfed right over your head! So sure...an absolutely legendary gig! But what about those gigs that redefined alt-rock? Those concerts or shows that stand out as legendary for what came after them? The bands they inspired or the lasting legacy of that show on the audience? Well we're going take a look at 8 of them and try to explain why they are so legendary in the history of alt-rock Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

Legendary Gigs

Few bands in Alt-Rock are as passionate, powerful and influenctial as Rage Against The Machine. On this weeks bonus summer Podcast, and by request, we dig into the archives to bring you our 2009 profile of RATM. We trace the roots of Rage from their earliest bands, all the way through their reunion in the late 00's. Enjoy. And turn this one up! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Few bands in Alt-Rock are as passionate, powerful and influenctial as Rage Against The Machine. On this weeks bonus summer Podcast, and by request, we dig into the archives to bring you our 2009 profile of RATM. We trace the roots of Rage from their earliest bands, all the way through their reunion in the late 00's. Enjoy. And turn this one up! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

Rage Against The Machine: Part 1

Front

Building and maintaining a band is a lot like building and maintaining a sports team…you struggle and wheel-and-deal and trade and sometimes steal to put together just the right lineup… And it’s not just sound and talent…it’s chemistry…leadership…stamina…all those intangible things that goes into making the whole greater than the sum of its parts… The perils are the same, too…your star quarterback goes down…that guy on the second line has tons of talent but he’s a cancer in the dressing room…the person you thought was healthy and strong turns out to have some kind of issue that’s getting worse and worse…or someone just might die on you… When everything goes pair-shaped, you have two choices: give it all up and call it a day…or you rebuild…. With a sports team, there are enough players out there that you can find a replacement…a trade, some cash, a draft pick, a free agent and you’re back in business…or maybe someone on the team steps up and unexpectedly fills that hole with talent and leadership… The same kind of thing can happen with a band, too—but not always…when a star departs—especially a lead singer and front person—that can create a fatal vacancy that can never be filled and so the band breaks up… Sometimes…but not always…here’s a study of groups who ended up changing their front person—and survived… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Building and maintaining a band is a lot like building and maintaining a sports team…you struggle and wheel-and-deal and trade and sometimes steal to put together just the right lineup… And it’s not just sound and talent…it’s chemistry…leadership…stamina…all those intangible things that goes into making the whole greater than the sum of its parts… The perils are the same, too…your star quarterback goes down…that guy on the second line has tons of talent but he’s a cancer in the dressing room…the person you thought was healthy and strong turns out to have some kind of issue that’s getting worse and worse…or someone just might die on you… When everything goes pair-shaped, you have two choices: give it all up and call it a day…or you rebuild…. With a sports team, there are enough players out there that you can find a replacement…a trade, some cash, a draft pick, a free agent and you’re back in business…or maybe someone on the team steps up and unexpectedly fills that hole with talent and leadership… The same kind of thing can happen with a band, too—but not always…when a star departs—especially a lead singer and front person—that can create a fatal vacancy that can never be filled and so the band breaks up… Sometimes…but not always…here’s a study of groups who ended up changing their front person—and survived… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

Groups That Changed Their Front-Person and Survived

There are people who still believe that the resurrection of vinyl is a fad, a passing trend, something of which people will tire and we’ll all move on… This, frankly, is insanity…total insanity… Vinyl LP sales have been going up by double digits year-over-year since 2008…and that’s just new releases…these figures don’t include the sales of used records in record shops, at record sales, or online through eBay or sites like discogs.com… The numbers also don’t include vinyl sold at the merch table at gigs…and it doesn’t include the millions of younger people who have been raiding their parents’ collections… People are deep into vinyl and are embracing (or re-embracing) the format more and more with every passing week…why?...maybe it’s a reaction to the digital age…people want something physical, tangible, something they can hold in their hands… Maybe it’s the idea that vinyl is inconvenient when compared to digital formats…listen to a vinyl record requires physical presence and care…or maybe it’s the warm, real sound of the audio… Whatever…I’m always getting email from people who want to know more about vinyl as people want to have a closer relationship with their music collections…okay…you asked for it…here’s more about vinyl that you ever need to know… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are people who still believe that the resurrection of vinyl is a fad, a passing trend, something of which people will tire and we’ll all move on… This, frankly, is insanity…total insanity… Vinyl LP sales have been going up by double digits year-over-year since 2008…and that’s just new releases…these figures don’t include the sales of used records in record shops, at record sales, or online through eBay or sites like <a href="http://discogs.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">discogs.com</a>… The numbers also don’t include vinyl sold at the merch table at gigs…and it doesn’t include the millions of younger people who have been raiding their parents’ collections… People are deep into vinyl and are embracing (or re-embracing) the format more and more with every passing week…why?...maybe it’s a reaction to the digital age…people want something physical, tangible, something they can hold in their hands… Maybe it’s the idea that vinyl is inconvenient when compared to digital formats…listen to a vinyl record requires physical presence and care…or maybe it’s the warm, real sound of the audio… Whatever…I’m always getting email from people who want to know more about vinyl as people want to have a closer relationship with their music collections…okay…you asked for it…here’s more about vinyl that you ever need to know… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

A Deep Dive Into Vinyl Trivia

Not that long ago, if you wanted to make an album, you needed rent a big, expensive recording studio…in addition to paying an hourly, daily, weekly or monthly rate, you need to pay for a producer, an engineer or two, all the recording tape you used and any catering that was required…it could get very expensive very quickly… But that was okay because back then, the music industry was awash in money…your label would happily advance you the money to cover your recording costs because they were just going to take it out of profits derived from the future sales of that album… Because there was so much money to be made, a lot of big, expensive recording studios were built…some were in big centres like New York, L.A., and London…others were chateaus out in the countryside or maybe on an exotic island…even a medium-sized city could boast half a dozen solid studios…. These days, it’s possible to make a very good-sounding album on a laptop in your bedroom…heck, I know of some people who have made credible-sounding records on their smart phones… But this doesn’t mean that big-time recording studios are now irrelevant…there are some things, some sounds and some needs that require a dedicated recording studio environment…but then there are those facilities that have been forced to shut down, killed by the massive changes to the music industry and the high cost of maintaining a studio when bookings are down… Still, there’s something really, really cool about recording studios, places where Legendary songs and iconic albums were created…and I’d like to take you on a tour some of these studios and listen to some of the music that was made within those walls…some of these places are still with us while some are only memories… Legendary recording studios, past and present… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Not that long ago, if you wanted to make an album, you needed rent a big, expensive recording studio…in addition to paying an hourly, daily, weekly or monthly rate, you need to pay for a producer, an engineer or two, all the recording tape you used and any catering that was required…it could get very expensive very quickly… But that was okay because back then, the music industry was awash in money…your label would happily advance you the money to cover your recording costs because they were just going to take it out of profits derived from the future sales of that album… Because there was so much money to be made, a lot of big, expensive recording studios were built…some were in big centres like New York, L.A., and London…others were chateaus out in the countryside or maybe on an exotic island…even a medium-sized city could boast half a dozen solid studios…. These days, it’s possible to make a very good-sounding album on a laptop in your bedroom…heck, I know of some people who have made credible-sounding records on their smart phones… But this doesn’t mean that big-time recording studios are now irrelevant…there are some things, some sounds and some needs that require a dedicated recording studio environment…but then there are those facilities that have been forced to shut down, killed by the massive changes to the music industry and the high cost of maintaining a studio when bookings are down… Still, there’s something really, really cool about recording studios, places where Legendary songs and iconic albums were created…and I’d like to take you on a tour some of these studios and listen to some of the music that was made within those walls…some of these places are still with us while some are only memories… Legendary recording studios, past and present… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

Legendary Recording Studios

Every once in a while, something extraordinary happens in rock’n’roll…I hate the use the cliché of “a perfect storm,” but that’s exactly what I’m talking about…a bunch of things involving culture, politics, demographics, economics and technology all collide and mix in just the right way for something totally new and unexpected to be created… Lemme give you some examples…Elvis came along in the 1950s just as million post-war kids—these new constructs that were now called “teenagers”—began gravitating to new radio stations that played music derived from a mix of the blues, country and r&amp;b…this music greatly annoyed their parents, something that made it dangerous and forbidden… In 1964, the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan show with a fresh, new sound that helped drag America out of the funk that followed the assassination of JFK…as far as rock is concerned, the 60s really began that February night in 1964… Let’s try something more current…you might remember the appearance of the music video in the early 80s transformed the industry…. or the time you heard “smells like teen spirit” for the first time and immediately you somehow knew that whatever came next in the 90s would be very, very different… And hip hop? don’t get me started…there are people—academics! —who will argue that the appearance of hip hop in popular culture was an even bigger deal that the Beatles… There’s one other event that we need to include on this list: the rise of punk rock in the middle 70s…as it was happening, it was no big deal…it was an aberration, a niche thing that indulged weirdos and misfits… “it’s just noise,” said the rock purists, “ignore it and it’ll go away” … But it didn’t…in fact, we’re still talking about punk…and punk became more than just a form of music… it became a way of thinking and acting and creating and presenting…it’s music, film, visual art, literature, dance, politics… it altered much of western thought…the punk aesthetic—that “screw you, I’m gonna do it anyway” ethos—can be found virtually everywhere in society today… But what led to this? what were the factors that led to the rise of this music? and how it appears worldwide at virtually the same time in an era long, long before the internet? great questions…. let’s see if we can find the answer to the question: “why did punk happen at all?” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every once in a while, something extraordinary happens in rock’n’roll…I hate the use the cliché of “a perfect storm,” but that’s exactly what I’m talking about…a bunch of things involving culture, politics, demographics, economics and technology all collide and mix in just the right way for something totally new and unexpected to be created… Lemme give you some examples…Elvis came along in the 1950s just as million post-war kids—these new constructs that were now called “teenagers”—began gravitating to new radio stations that played music derived from a mix of the blues, country and r&amp;b…this music greatly annoyed their parents, something that made it dangerous and forbidden… In 1964, the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan show with a fresh, new sound that helped drag America out of the funk that followed the assassination of JFK…as far as rock is concerned, the 60s really began that February night in 1964… Let’s try something more current…you might remember the appearance of the music video in the early 80s transformed the industry…. or the time you heard “smells like teen spirit” for the first time and immediately you somehow knew that whatever came next in the 90s would be very, very different… And hip hop? don’t get me started…there are people—academics! —who will argue that the appearance of hip hop in popular culture was an even bigger deal that the Beatles… There’s one other event that we need to include on this list: the rise of punk rock in the middle 70s…as it was happening, it was no big deal…it was an aberration, a niche thing that indulged weirdos and misfits… “it’s just noise,” said the rock purists, “ignore it and it’ll go away” … But it didn’t…in fact, we’re still talking about punk…and punk became more than just a form of music… it became a way of thinking and acting and creating and presenting…it’s music, film, visual art, literature, dance, politics… it altered much of western thought…the punk aesthetic—that “screw you, I’m gonna do it anyway” ethos—can be found virtually everywhere in society today… But what led to this? what were the factors that led to the rise of this music? and how it appears worldwide at virtually the same time in an era long, long before the internet? great questions…. let’s see if we can find the answer to the question: “why did punk happen at all?” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

Why Punk Happened

Just because you're a successful musician or are in a band doesn't mean you don't want to try something else. Maybe you want to open up your own side business in something related to music. Maybe it's in a completely different part of the economy.  Whatever the case...you want to try something different while still doing your day-job. In this podcast we look at various side business that musicians have tried over the years. Now granted this show was done a number of years ago, and some of these business may no longer exist, but what it shows is how musicians have taken on more than just touring over the years. These are musicians who moonlight.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Just because you're a successful musician or are in a band doesn't mean you don't want to try something else. Maybe you want to open up your own side business in something related to music. Maybe it's in a completely different part of the economy.  Whatever the case...you want to try something different while still doing your day-job. In this podcast we look at various side business that musicians have tried over the years. Now granted this show was done a number of years ago, and some of these business may no longer exist, but what it shows is how musicians have taken on more than just touring over the years. These are musicians who moonlight.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://megaphone.fm/adchoices" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">megaphone.fm/adchoices</a>

Moonlighting

The Best Multi-Part Documentaries, with documentaries on Obama, Federer vs Nadal, the making of Star Wars, Netflix vs Blockbuster and more. Add episodes you're interested into your queue below!

Best Multi-Part Documentaries

The best podcast episodes of anyone with an interesting story. With famous guests like Obama, LeBron James, Drake, Oprah Winfrey, Richard Branson, Michelle Obama, Serena Williams, to anyone who has a unique and interesting story to tell. Add episodes you're interested into your queue below!