Ongoing History of New Music
434 episodes - English - Latest episode: 7 days ago - ★★★★★ - 491 ratingsOngoing 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.
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Episodes
100 Weirdest Things in Alt-Rock: Part 6
July 05, 2023 04:00 - 28 minutesI 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 ...
100 Weirdest Things in Alt-Rock: Part 5
June 28, 2023 04:00 - 30 minutesSome 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 ha...
100 Weirdest Things in Alt-Rock: Part 4
June 21, 2023 04:00 - 29 minutesFrom 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 ...
Introducing... Deadman's Curse: Slumach's Gold
June 17, 2023 04:01 - 27 minutesThis 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 prospe...
100 Weirdest Things in Alt-Rock: Part 3
June 14, 2023 04:00 - 29 minutesIf 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 ...
100 Weirdest Things in Alt-Rock: Part 2
June 07, 2023 04:00 - 26 minutesThere’s an old saying that goes “he who dies with the least regrets wins”... Good words to live by because by the time we shuffle off this mortal coil, all of us are going to have done and said things that we wish we hadn’t...and chances are, we hope that no one finds out about this stuff... It’s the skeletons in the closet–pieces of our past that we try not to show (or even try to hide) from other people... But in the era of tabloid celebrity, paparazzi, Facebook, MySpace, twitter, Wikipedia...
100 Weirdest Things in Alt-Rock: Part 1
May 31, 2023 04:00 - 31 minutesI have a fascination with the strange...what seems ordinary at first glance is–well, isn’t ordinary at all.... Once you get in the habit of looking past the obvious, the universe opens up in some interesting, unexpected and really cool ways... For example, if you’re ever in Albania and you agree with what someone says, shake your head from side-to-side...if you disagree, nod...in other words, do the opposite to what you would do at home...that’s just the way it is in Albania... Here’s another...
10 Things About Chris Cornell
May 24, 2023 14:35 - 25 minutesIt’s always a shock when we hear that a rock star has died...but when the news about Chris Cornell came out on May 18, 2017, it was extra-jarring... The overall impression was that he was a guy who had it good...he’d been a central fixture of the grunge era as the front man of Soundgarden...there was an totally unexpected hit with the Temple of the Dog project...then a solid three-album run with Audioslave... His solo recordings were hit-and-miss, but given everything else he’d done, fans gav...
Rock Explainer 3
May 17, 2023 04:00 - 38 minutesThis universe is very weird...so weird, in fact, that we often don’t question its weirdness even though it’s right in front of us...we’re completely caught up in it... For example, when someone takes a group picture, there’s always that person that demands that everyone “say cheese”....that’s a way to get everyone to smile...you can’t help but smile when you say “cheese”. No one is really sure who was first to employ the “cheese” trick for photography... In the early days of the camera, it w...
Valuable Vinyl
May 10, 2023 04:00 - 30 minutesTimes are good for vinyl...the format was all but dead until some desperate record store owners invented “record store day” in 2008...since then, we’ve seen double-digit increases in vinyl sales year after year after year... Things are so good that in several countries, the revenue brought in by selling vinyl is greater than the revenue generated by compact disc sales...we haven’t seen anything like this since the late 80s... What’s driving the boom?...many things, from audio quality to the a...
54-40 In Their Own Words Part 2
May 03, 2023 19:13 - 39 minutesIf you’re going to commit to being in a band, you have to prepared to deal with the bad as well as the good... The good stuff can include fame, money, perks, and the ability to make a living by playing music...enviable stuff... But then there’s the bad stuff...problems with your record label...lineup changes...dealing with the fickle tastes of the public...writer’s block...internal struggles...management hassles...I guess we can add pandemic lockdowns, too... I could go on, but you get the po...
54-40 In Their Own Words Part 1
April 26, 2023 04:00 - 39 minutesBeing in a band is hard...keeping a band together is harder still...and if a band can keep it together for more longer than a decade, they should get some kind of medal... Let’s give props to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, still going since their establishment in 1983...Metallica has been with us since 1981...both new order and Depeche Mode go back to 1980... The current lineup of U2 has been the same since that day in March 1978 when they changed their name from “The Hype”...as they were doing t...
Buying Catalogues - A Primer
April 19, 2023 04:00 - 40 minutesThere is a new gold rush going on right now—but this one is different...it has nothing to do with minerals or oil or any other traditional commodity...it’s not what we’ve seen with crypto currency...it may have to do with stock markets, but not always...and yet it’s a form of investment, one that should continue to pay off for decades to come... I’m talking about the rush to buy up song catalogues, the rights to material created by some of the biggest artists on the planet...you’ve probably ...
History of Skate Punk
April 12, 2023 04:00 - 29 minutesMy main interest with skateboarding is the music that’s evolved along with it...in fact, there’s a whole subgenre of alt-rock built on skateboarding culture....and there are plenty of legendary rock acts that found their first fans among the skate crowd... This music goes back a lot farther than you might expect, too...i think it’s time that we gave skate punk its due... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
9 Nine In Nails Tales
April 05, 2023 04:00 - 39 minutesI vividly remember my first encounter with Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails...it was April 17, 1990, at the old RPM club in Toronto... Nine Inch Nails were opening for Goth God Peter Murphy and frankly, no one cared... I was there with a bunch of people chatting at the bar while this noisy band blitzed their way through the first four songs of their set...and then came song number five...it was an insanely heavy version of the Queen song, “Get Down Make Love” from their 1977 album, “News of t...
Sonic Coincidences in Alt-Rock Part 2
March 29, 2023 04:00 - 28 minutesThis is part 2 of our look at true stories of plagiarism and unfortunate sonic coincidences in the world of Alt-Rock Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sonic Coincidences in Alt-Rock Part 1
March 22, 2023 04:00 - 26 minutesLet me ask you this...how many times have you heard a song and said "Hey that song sounds just like something I heard last month. That guitar riff is really familiar....don't they realize those chords were used in a song years ago?!?!?!" This sort of thing happens all the time...in fact it happens more than most people realize. Sometimes quiet deals are worked out behind the scenes and the public never knows, other times things get ugly.... These are true stories of plagiarism and unfortunate...
The Weird History of Concert Tickets Part 2
March 15, 2023 04:00 - 50 minutesWe’ve all been there...tickets for a concert you really, really want to see are set to go on sale at exactly 10am...you’re on the Ticketmaster site as the clock ticks toward the appointed time... 9:59:57...9:59:58...9:59:59...ten o’clock!...show time... Enter...nothing...refresh refresh refresh the browser...nothing...you try mashing the f5 button a bunch times...no luck....you hit control-r a couple of times...still nothing...but then, one last time and you’re in!...except you’re not...at 10...
The Weird History of Concert Tickets Part 1
March 08, 2023 05:00 - 39 minutesLet’s define a “concert ticket”...it is a contract between you, an act, a promoter, and a venue that allows you admission to specific event at a stated time and place...seems simple enough...let’s continue... A concert ticket can cost money that goes to covering costs and making a profit for those staging the concert...or in some cases, it can be free and is used mainly for tracking attendance... Fair enough...a concert ticket can be pre-printed on card stock...it can be printed by a machine ...
The Early Days of LGBTQ Rock
March 01, 2023 15:12 - 31 minutesOnce upon a time, it was illegal—criminal—to be another other than heterosexual...any hint that you may be something other than straight could get you into all sorts of trouble—and career suicide was the least of your worries... In 1895, the famous English playwright, Oscar Wilde, was put on trial for homosexual practices...he was found guilty and sentenced to two years in jail...he never recovered from the ordeal and died soon after his release... In 1959, Liberace, the famous pianist, sued ...
The Very First Episode of the Ongoing History of New Music
February 28, 2023 05:00 - 21 minutesI vividly remember sitting down to write the first-ever episode of “The Ongoing History of New Music”...I was in my living room with a blank yellow note pad...and I was terrified... To be brutally honest, I did not want this gig...but the powers-that-be decreed that this was my new job...if didn’t want to do it, that would have been cool...I was told I’d receive a manila envelope containing a modest severance package... That wouldn’t work...I’d just gotten married and I’d just bought a house ...
Black History Month 2023
February 22, 2023 05:00 - 25 minutesA couple of years back, I did an episode called “The Diversity Show”...it ran in February as part of Black History Month...the goal was to salute the contributions of people of African descent to the world of rock... It was quite the list...Jimi Hendrix...we had to talk about Jimi, one of the greatest guitarists of all time...then there was Death, a criminally overlooked band from Detroit called Death who were about 20 years ahead of their time... We talked about Bad Brains, the great hardco...
More Vinyl Stories
February 15, 2023 05:00 - 34 minutesAt the dawn of the 21st century, vinyl was dead, dead, dead...we were all going digital and there was no point in keeping this ancient format...vinyl records were dusty, scratchy, and noisy...they took up too much storage space...they warped and got water damaged... But the biggest knock against vinyl was that it wasn’t portable...MP3s were a brand-new thing back then and the idea of being able to carry around a thousand songs on a device that could fit in your pocket was pretty sexy... While...
The Story of TV Theme Songs
February 08, 2023 05:00 - 37 minutesLike Homer Simpson, I love my TV...without my local, network, cable, on-demand, and streaming shows none of us would have made it through the pandemic... The downside is that in order to remain distracted and entertainment, I became over-subscribed...mixed with my perpetual fear of missing out, I’ve ended up paying for more cable channels than I need and subscribing to channels I don’t even watch... I’m just too lazy to go through my credit card statements, find the offending charges, and t...
Connections
February 01, 2023 05:00 - 38 minutesBack in the late 70s, the BBC debuted a science education show called “Connections”...the host was James Burke, an affable, professorish guy, usually dressed in a beige polyester leisure suit who gave the term “interdisciplinary” a whole new meaning... His thing was to take disparate developments in science and technology and show how they were actually interconnected in ways that led to our modern world...nothing, he demonstrated, existed in isolation over the long term... One show connected...
The History of Remixes
January 25, 2023 05:00 - 31 minutesWhen humans first started making audio recordings of music, they were limited as to how long those recordings could be... An original Edison cylinder could maybe hold two minutes of music, therefore any songs committed to the format had to be two minutes or shorter—otherwise you’d run out of space... When Emilee Berliner came along with his flat rotating disc that spun at 78 rpm, capacity increased a little bit...you now had around three minutes for a song before you ran out of space...so eve...
Couples in Music
January 18, 2023 05:00 - 27 minutesHave you ever had to work together with your significant other?...and I don’t mean anything like housework or parenting or anything like that...I’m talking about a job—your primary source of income—where the two of you have to work on the same things under the same circumstances in the same place?... This can go one of two ways...first, the bond between you grows stronger because you have shared interests, goals, and frustrations...your combined knowledge and talents can make things proceed m...
In Memoriam of Those Lost in 2022
January 11, 2023 05:00 - 29 minutesSometime around 2016, I got the sense that we were entering into a new era of rock history: a period when the musicians we loved and admired began to die... Listen, there had been many deaths before then, but they seemed reasonably few and far between...but 2016 seems to have been the year—for me, anyone—when I realized that many of our most beloved musicians were getting older and starting to die off... That one year alone we lost David Bowie, Glen Frey of The Eagles, Prince, Leonard Cohen, ...
Rhythm Sections
January 04, 2023 05:00 - 21 minutesIn most rock bands, we hear most about the singer and the guitarist...you know...those two up front tend to get the most attention, and the most adoration. That leaves the bass player and the drummer to do the best that they can. This is often extremely unfair as they form the foundation of any bands sound....the bass and the beat. You can have the greatest lead singer on the planet, and the flashiest guitarist around...but if you ain't got that swing...you ain't got a thing. So we're gonna s...
Outsider Music
December 28, 2022 05:00 - 39 minutesWhen it comes to what you are about to hear, there is nothing wrong with your equipment or how it was produced...this music is exactly as it was intended to be. It is exactly as it was record, and exactly as it was to be presented to the universe. We are now ready to dive into some of the most alternative music you will ever hear. Welcome to the ultra strange world of Outsider Music. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Roots of New Wave through Techno-Pop
December 21, 2022 05:00 - 26 minutesA few years ago, there was a revival. A rediscovery of a sound that we used to call Techno-Pop. Some people loved it...some people hated it. But whatever the opinion, it was a very important part of Alt-Rock history. So what was Techno-Pop? Who were the main artists? Where did it come from? And where did it go? Let's explore... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
60 Mind-Blowing Facts About Music 2022 Edition
December 14, 2022 05:00 - 36 minutesWell, it’s that time again...another year is almost at an end—and once again, we have been subjected to the whims of the universe and human stupidity through 2022... It got better with covid but then we have the war in Ukraine...politics are more polarized than ever no matter where you go...social media is still making us stupider...and try as he might to leave the planet, Elon Musk is still here... When it comes to the world of music, we lost Taylor Hawkins, Andy Fletcher of Depeche Mode, Pa...
Introducing "Everything 80's"
December 08, 2022 05:00 - 33 minutesIt was a classic battle between good and evil and it gave us one of the greatest toys of all time. Today, we journey back to revisit the history of the iconic Transformers. From their early days in Japan to dominating TVs and toy shelves in North America, this is another defining 1980s toys franchise that was also a masterclass in marketing. So hit play and let's roll out! Support the show and get bonus audio content at Patreon.com/80s Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adch...
20 Short Stories About Joe Strummer
December 07, 2022 05:00 - 28 minutesWhen Joe Strummer died on December 22, 2002, no one could believe it...first of all, the guy was only 50...second, this was a guy who ran marathons...third, he’d been strict vegetarian since 1971... And fourth, it was Joe Strummer, one of the toughest and most uncompromising musicians in the history of not just punk, not just alternative, but rock period, full stop... Yet it happened in his kitchen in Somerset, England, just after he finished walking the dog...cause of death?...heart attack...
Piano Heroes
November 30, 2022 05:00 - 29 minutesRock’n’roll is built on the electric guitar...well, mostly...and not really in the beginning...in fact, the electric guitar as we know it, didn’t have much to do with the birth of rock at all... The earliest rock evolved out of rhythm & blues combos...by the early 50s, many of them featured some kind of electric guitars...but the honk and rhythm came from saxophones and pianos which were slowly pounded into matchsticks... The piano contributed bits of jazz, boogie-woogie, barrelhouse, and juk...
Introducing "Canadian History Ehx"
November 24, 2022 05:00 - 24 minutesFrom 1964 to 1966, The Beatles played only a handful of shows in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. Each show was pandemonium but the story of the Beatles in Canada goes far beyond that. From their first visit to Canada in Winnipeg, to the famous Bed-In in Montreal in 1969. Support: patreon.com/canadaehx Donate: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/craigU Donate: canadaehx.com (Click Donate) E-mail: [email protected] Twitter: twitter.com/craigbaird Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cdnhistoryehx YouTub...
Michael Hutchence: 25 Years Later
November 23, 2022 05:00 - 36 minutesBeing a music fan was much different in the era before the internet...news traveled slowly often passed through many filters—so many filters, in fact, that a tremendous amount of information was either stripped out or drastically altered by the time it reached us... This was never more true in cases when something awful happened—like, say, someone dying...think back to all the confusion and speculation and conspiracy theories that popped up in the wake of Kurt Cobain’s death... Three years la...
Musicians Battling Disease Part 2
November 16, 2022 05:00 - 35 minutesIn the old days before the internet, musicians had an aura of mystique about them...we only knew what they wanted us to know or what music writers could ferret out...it was an era of secrets and information that was kept quiet... Now, though, things are different...because of social media and our always-on culture, information is everywhere...artists have never given up as much personal information as they do today...too much information, sometimes... We don’t want our heroes to be life size...
Musicians Battling Disease Part 1
November 09, 2022 05:00 - 29 minutesThe human body is a wonderful thing, a marvel of evolution, biology, chemistry, and more than a few bits—like consciousness—we don’t understand...and for the most part, this meat bag of water and chemicals works pretty well... But it’s not perfect...we will continue to age as long as we can’t figure out how to improve the reproduction of telomeres, those little strands of special proteins at the end of our chromosomes...after many, many reproductions, they become ratty and degrade, which has ...
Driven By Her: Women of the 21st Century
November 03, 2022 04:00 - 29 minutesThere’s no way to sugarcoat it: the music industry has a reputation of being unkind to women...it has been a struggle from the beginning...and even after decades of work, things have evolved to the point where less than a quarter of the acts on some music charts are women... The actual figure for the billboard hot 100 is around 22%...and it’s been stuck at that level for over a decade... I found a few more stats...if we look at that same decade-long period, women made up only 13% of songwrite...
The History of Distortion and Feedback
November 02, 2022 04:00 - 40 minutesOnce upon a time not that long ago, all music was expected to sound clean and clear. Pure, accurate, right in tune. And lo, it was…fine. But with the introduction of the electric guitar and the amplifiers that went with them, some intrepid players started experimenting with ways to toughen up that sound. They wanted more power, more growl, more rawness. And over a period of about 20 years, the clean, pure sound of the original electric guitars gave way to something dirty, distorted, filled w...
Rock Explainer 2
October 26, 2022 04:00 - 33 minutesThere’s the La Tomatina festival that happens on the last Wednesday in August in Spain...this is the largest public tomato fight in the world...first of all, why would you do this on a Wednesday?...and second, this seems like an awful waste of food... No one is really sure where this tradition began, either...we think it started in 1945 when there was a brawl in the main square and one of the few weapons available were the tomatoes on carts of the vegetable stands... They do something weird i...
Rock's Greatest Disasters
October 19, 2022 04:00 - 40 minutesHumanity has always been set by disasters, whether they’ve been acts of god or something we somehow brought on ourselves...war, disease, earthquakes, famine, floods, volcanic eruptions, fire, plane crashes, industrial accidents, sinking ships, extreme weather... The worst disaster of all time?...probably the influenza epidemic of 1918 to 1920...it’s possible that up to 100 million died during that three-year period... Then again, world war ii was worse....by some estimates, the death toll was...
Hidden Tracks and Other Sundry
October 12, 2022 14:13 - 26 minutesThis is a program about the hidden audio that lurks in your music collection. You don’t know about it…you didn’t ask for it…you maybe didn’t even want it…but it’s there…and it needs to be exposed… And it’s more than just hidden songs, too…there’s all kinds of weirdness tucked away—if you know where to look…and when I say “weird”, I mean “super weird” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Driven By Her: Guitar Heroes
October 06, 2022 04:00 - 28 minutesOnce upon a time, musical instruments were divided into two groups: those appropriate for women to play and everything else... That first group was very small...playing the piano was considered feminine...the violin?...yes, providing it was done gently and with ladylike comportment...and then—well, that’s about it... Drums?...forget it...too physical and sweaty...brass instruments were out...in fact, so were all wind instruments, not even the flute...however, the acoustic guitar was okay...i...
The Roots of the 90s CanRock Explosion
October 05, 2022 04:00 - 31 minutesThere was a time in this country when Canadians didn’t really care about Canadian music...no, wait...let’s start over... There was a time in this country when Canadians didn’t like Canadian music and did whatever they could to ignore it and pretend it didn’t exist...yeah, that’s more accurate... There was one exception to this rule: if a Canadian artist received some kind of validation from outside the country—preferably the united states—then suddenly, they were worth paying attention to a...
The Long Strange Trip of John Frusciante Part 2
September 28, 2022 04:00 - 32 minutesIf there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years dealing with musicians, there are artists and then there are artistes...here’s how I tell them apart...Artists make art, but they also have other interests, pursuits and abilities...Bono is an example of an artist...he’s the front man of U2 but is also involved in politics, activism, tech, and a load of other things...and everything he does is done with an artistic flair and the soul of a performer... Artistes also make art...but it’s all they...
The Long Strange Trip of John Frusciante Part 1
September 21, 2022 04:00 - 32 minutesAnd if I’m sitting with my taxonomy flowchart, this is where I write the name “John Frusciante,” the occasional guitarist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers... And I use the word “occasional” deliberately because he’s been in and out of the band a number of times over the last 30 years...as I write this, he’s “in”—but who knows for how long... And I’m classifying him as periplaneta americana because despite everything he’s been through, he’s still alive...I mean, he’s live a hard life...drugs, va...
Mind-blowing Facts about Music, the Brain, and the Body
September 14, 2022 04:00 - 30 minutesThe most powerful and strangest lump of organic material in the known universe is sitting inside your skull...the human brain weighs about three pounds—call it about 1400 grams if you’re feeling metric—and contains about 10 billion neurons...a piece the size of a grain of sand contains 100,000 neurons and over a billion synapses... At the same time, it uses only about 10 watts to function...that’s ten times better than your laptop...and one brain (we think) is equivalent to at least 100,000 l...
Driven By Her: Unsung Heroines
September 08, 2022 16:53 - 28 minutesHave you ever heard of a woman named Rosalind Franklin?...probably not, but you can draw a line from today’s covid vaccines all the way back to her in the 1950s...she conducted some serious research into the makeup of rna molecules... Rosalind also did some groundbreaking research into the structure of DNA molecules...without her, Jim Watson and Francis Crick may not have discovered how DNA was constructed...they’d go on to win the Nobel prize in 1962...was Rosalind ever given the credit she ...