Ongoing History of New Music

One of the occupational hazards of my job is I run across all kinds of facts, bits of data, and pieces of knowledge that don’t have any immediate practical application… For example, I ran across this piece of royal etiquette…the British royals are forbidden to play “monopoly”—as in the board game… I have no idea why, but this is apparently a hard and fast rule… If you have a cat, you know all about hairballs…the technical term for one of those is a “bezoar”… Still with animals, there’s a psychological disorder called “Boanthropy”…this is when a person believes they are a cow and tries to live their lives accordingly… What do you think the most popular item sold at Wal-Mart is?...bananas…Wal-Mart sells more bananas than anything else in its inventory… Astronauts cannot burp is space…that’s because the lack of gravity means all the gases in your stomach get mixed with the liquids and the solids instead of separating out…if you tried to burp, everything would come up at the same time…so where do gastric gases go?...out the other end… And before you ask, no you cannot use that to propel yourself through the international space station…Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield tried that and he reports that the thrust produced isn’t enough to produce the requisite Newtonian shift in vector… I have more, but I think you get the idea…this brings me to the topic of this program…when researching “ongoing history” episodes and my blog, I always come across pieces of information that are, if not useless, very close to being so… But much of this stuff is just too weird, too fascinating, too fun to ignore…so once a year, it has become my habit to conduct a big data dump of this information…what you do with this what I’m about to tell you is completely up to you…. This is the annual show I called “60 mind-blowing facts about music in 60 minutes”…. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Once upon a time, not that long ago and in a land not that far away, musicians—not all, but some—could become very, very rich… Their riches came by selling pieces of plastic to those who enjoyed their music…those pieces of plastic were very, very precious because they were this was the only way musicians could distribute recordings of their art and their supply and their price was strictly regulated by the lords of the music industry… Eons earlier, the oracles had foretold that this plastic would come down—but that never seemed to happen…the overlords enjoyed their immense wealth and were loathe to do anything that might jeopardize the power of their kingdoms… Meanwhile, musicians—not all, but some—also reaped huge riches as millions and even tens of millions of people handed over money for the privilege of owning certain pieces of plastic…the musicians never made as much as their overlords, but plenty just the same…and it was good… In fact, it was very good…there were lavish parties, obscene luxuries and plenty of indulgences on a scale unimaginable by the good citizens of the regular world… Yeah, it’s not like that anymore…new artists know this…but what if you are one of those acts who had a taste of the good life—the old record industry—and then had to adjust to the new realities?... Let’s talk to one of those artists—someone who has adjusted to life in the post-cd world…how was it then—and what’s it like now…really… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you sign your first record deal, it’s usually for around seven albums…theoretically; this is to protect both sides… First, it offers the artist a degree of security…it gives the artist a few records to develop and mature so if they don’t score big with the first album, they’ll a little longer to establish their career and reputation… Second, the label has a chance to see if their investment in this act pays off…the label puts all kinds of money into the artist up front and therefore needs the artist to turn profitable as soon as possible so they can make that money back and start seeing a return… But a record deal is like a marriage…sometimes things go well and everyone lives together happily ever after…and sometimes (and for whatever reason), one party wants out…a divorce is in order… It was this second scenario in which Radiohead found itself at the beginning of 2005…they had fulfilled their end of the bargain to EMI Records: six studio albums, a live album, half a dozen EP’s along with at least four video releases…and now they wanted out… they had no wish to resign with EMI … But were their options?... Option (a): negotiate a killer deal with EMI with the hopes of signing a contract that addressed every single one of their concerts…but EMI was in trouble, the smallest and weakest of the major labels…the internet was killing the company and management didn’t seem to have a clue…it looked like they were determined to drive the label into the ground no matter what they did… Option (b) sign with another major label when it looked like the entire recording industry was melting down, again thanks to rampant piracy and the disruption brought about by the internet...in other words, a contract with another major might be no better than signing with EMI … But then there was option (c): go it alone and redefine what it would mean to be an “independent artist”…after thinking long and hard about it, Radiohead went with option (c)… Crazy idea…then again… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you think about it, it’s quite an accomplishment to become a one-hit-wonder...sure, your career is essentially over after one song–but hey, at least you made it that far...think about all the bands who have worked for years and years and years and never managed to enjoy even the briefest taste of success... Still, no one likes that label...it’s demoralizing, knowing that you’ve gone down in history as a band with just one good song... It’s hard to imagine it now that they’re considered to be one of the most influential groups of a generation, but this is exactly the sort of thing Radiohead faced early in their career… But with the help of producer John Leckie and a tour opening for Alanis Morisette (who was on her way to selling 30 million copies of “Jagged Little Pill”), they were able to overcome the pressure of following up the potential one-hit-wonder-ness of “Creep”… Let’s pick up the story there…this is a history of Radiohead, part 2… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When I say the word "Shrine"...what comes to mind? Lords? A temple in the Himalaya’s? Something secular...like a war memorial? They could be something makeshift like flowers placed on the side of the road where someone died. Shrines appear in pop culture too. Any place that has been deemed important because of its history or associations...can be considered a shrine. It's a place people visit so they can see things for themselves. Now rock n roll has many shrines. The field where Buddy Holly's plane crashed, the site of the first Woodstock in 1969, Elvis' Graceland....doesn't get much bigger than that. But what about in the modern era of rock? There must be places where people make pilgrimages. Well of course there are....and here are a bunch of them. 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 megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here's the thing. As a musician you can spend thousands and thousands of hours, days, weeks working to be a success. You know, make enough money to pay the bills, have a living, and make a career...provide for yourself and the family. And maybe if you work hard enough, catch the right breaks, make the right moves...you will make that happen. You'll be successful and it will all seem worth it. Other times...just when you are on the way up, about to have that big break...or maybe you already have...you end up dying. And that sucks... But...weirdly, in some cases you end up being up more successful in death then you were in life. You end up making far more money after you shuffled off this mortal coil then you did on it. And that's not really fair now is it? Here's a look at some cases where death turns out to be an interesting career move. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before 1971, there really wasn’t much of a Canadian music industry…sure, there were record labels and recording studios and promoters and agents, but we didn’t have what you’d call a “first-world” industry… Canada was a backwater, a place where the big labels had branch offices…anyone who wanted to make it big had to leave the country, usually for the United States… But then came the Canadian content laws in January 1971…overnight, it became law that Canadian radio stations had to devote 30% of their playlists to Canadian artists…this created an artificial demand for this music which a lot of people screamed bloody murder about… But this demand needed to be serviced, so a modern music industry grew up around it—all the infrastructure required to have a proper domestic scene…that meant more record labels, more recording studios, more promoters, more agents… A domestic star system began to emerge…Canadians started buying more music by Canadian artists…and those artists who didn’t want to bolt for the united states found that they could make a decent living by staying in Canada… It took about 20 years for our music industry to mature into something truly world class…and by the time we got to the 1990s, there was a sense that our best could compete with anyone in the world… That’s when everything exploded…Canadian generation Xers not only embraced the alt-rock that was coming from the States—grunge, industrial, punk, whatever—but also the homegrown stuff…walking into a record store in, say, 1995, meant being faced with racks of Canadian product right up front…and people were mad for it… This is our second half of our remembrance of some great Can-Rock bands of the 90s… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you came of age musically in Canada in the 1990s, you’ll remember that it was an extraordinary time…there was this mass embracing of homegrown music…it was part nationalism and part patriotism, but it was also something else… A vast generation of young people simultaneously said, “Canadian music is as good as anything the rest of the world has to offer and we want more of it”…and we got it… More acts were signed to the big labels and made records…radio played those records…MuchMusic ran the videos…there were tours and festivals…record stores stacked this new stuff up front…and over a few short years, a brand new star system emerged… Some of those stars are still with us…Our Lady Peace, Matthew Good, The Barenaked Ladies, Sloan …they’ve all had fruitful mult-decade careers that began in either the very late 80s or early 90s… The Tragically Hip became a juggernaut…Alanis Morissette had the biggest-selling album from female artist of all time…and let’s not forget that a couple of the “Big Shiny Tunes” compilations from MuchMusic—which were heavy on the Can-Con—sold more than a million units just in this country… Like all eras of music, there was attrition as bands came and went, passing into the realm of memories…that’s the music business…there are some long-term survivors, but most of it is evanescent… So what happen to the rest of acts?...did they really break up?...are they still doing stuff?...where are the members of these bands today?... Let’s try to track down some of the CanRock groups of the 90s, part 1… 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 megaphone.fm/adchoices

Being a kid of a rock star isn't the easiest life to live. The celebrity, the expectations to be like your dad or mom who's a famous rock star. Everyone watching you to make a mistake. But there are times it has its rewards too. This is a look at what it's like to be a Rock Star kid Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There’s just something fun about learning to play one of your favourite songs for yourself…you know, learning the lyrics, figuring out the chords and the rhythm and deconstructing all the constituent parts… Then you get deeper…you begin to appreciate how everything fits together, the artistic decisions made by songwriter made, what kind of musical skill is required, the sort of production that was employed all that…and by the time you’ve learned the song, you’ve learned a whole lot of other things, too…and you’re probably a better musician as a result…this is why learning to play other people’s music is so important… Now let’s look at it from the other side…if a song can be interpreted multiple times by many different people and it still sounds good, then that is a great song… The best compositions not only sound great when played by a full band, but also sound great when performed by one person around a campfire… And finally, there’s the fan aspect of all this…people love to hear songs done in different ways by different artists…sometimes the cover is even better than the original—or, at the very least, is revealed to be something more in the hands of someone else… With all this in mind, I’ve assembled a list of cover songs…and we’re going to go through with them to determine what makes them (and the original) great… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For this Ongoing History bonus Podcast, we go back to the spring of 2004 to take a look at the "Was Kurt Cobain Murdered" conspiracy. These shows originally aired 10 years after the death of Cobain and looks at all the angles, all the facts, all the theories, and all the conspiracies about how Kurt dies. And now, almost lmost 25 years from his death some people are still debating whether Kurt Cobian comitted suicide...or if he was murdered. Lots to unpack in this 2 part series. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I hope you’re ready for an interesting interview with Ash and Jay from USS…because this is another one of those occasional “in their own words” profiles where I just let the artist tell their stories in whatever fashion they choose…and if listened to part one, this talk with USS was not in anyway ordinary… When you sit down with Ash Boschultz and Jay “The Human Kebab” Parsons of USS, you end up having a conversation where you’re not sure how you arrived at this place, but there you are…so just open your mind, sit back and take it all in… It’s part two of USS: in their own words… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For this Ongoing History bonus Podcast, we go back to the spring of 2004 to take a look at the "Was Kurt Cobain Murdered" conspiracy. These shows originally aired 10 years after the death of Cobain and looks at all the angles, all the facts, all the theories, and all the conspiracies about how Kurt dies. And now, almost lmost 25 years from his death some people are still debating whether Kurt Cobian comitted suicide...or if he was murdered. Lots to unpack in this 2 part series. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you’re a fan of a particular artist, you want to know everything you can about them…maybe you scour things like their official bios, their Wikipedia pages and maybe read through as many interviews and articles as you can… All that is fine…but what if there’s a way to get more?.... When it comes to telling the story of an artist, it is always best if you get the artist to tell it themselves…you get the unvarnished truth, told from the heart by the people who are actually making the music… That’s great in theory, but it’s awfully difficult to get everyone in one place at one time, what with touring schedules, recording commitments and life…but if there’s just two people, then it’s a little easier… With a little bit of wrangling, I managed to get Ash and Jay from USS into the studio…has their story been told before?...yes, of course…but not like this… This is USS in their own words, part 1… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I love the smell and feel of recording studios…if you’ve been inside a proper one, you’ll know what i mean… The air is kept clean and dust-free to protect the equipment…the a/c is usually cranked up to offset the heat generated by the electronics…there’s a slight whiff of ozone created by all the electrical circuits…and it’s usually very, very quiet…loads of isolation and baffling and sound-proofing… To me, a recording studio is the musical equivalent of an operating theatre; a place that’s dedicated to one thing and one thing only…and what goes on within the walls is deadly serious… Okay, I’m not saying that recording a song is the same as a heart transplant or something, but there is the same sort of vibe… There used to be dozens and dozens of these places around the planet…people would travel thousands of kilometers to work there because they were thought to be magical in some way… But that’s when you needed a full-equipped recording studio to make a record…today, you can do a pretty good job with a laptop in your bedroom… Many of the legendary studios are gone, a victim of the changing economics of the music industry…a few of these behemoth still exist… This is another look at the world’s legendary recording studios, both past and present… Songs in this Episode: David Bowie - Life on Mars Sex Pistols - Holiday in the Sun The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony Mumford & Sons - Believe The Clash - The Magnificent Seven The Black Keys - Tighten Up The Tragically Hip - Poets Bob Marley and the Wailers - No Woman, No Cry Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I used to be a big fan of “King of the Hill”…Hank Hill would often look at his son Bobby and say… “that boy ain’t right” I know how he feels…you know when you encounter someone and there’s something off about them?...they’re not malevolent or evil in any way…they’re not a danger to themselves or anyone else…they’re just different… They look at the world in ways you wouldn’t think to—which is kinda cool in a lot of ways… but at the same time it might be a bit—well, maybe “unnerving” is too strong…but at the same time, you’re not really sure what’s going on or how you should react… This happens a lot with music…you encounter artist who has a complete unexpected attitude to towards the universe…this is to be expected…art can comes from a strange, uncharted place in the soul…and since all souls are different, you’d expect that some weird will leak out from some of the weirder souls… And because alt-rock has a history of being open to different forms of expression, some of these souls have found homes in this province of rock’n’roll…and some of those have even had hit records… Maybe we should look at some of these musical outliers…it’s a tense world…maybe this will help loosen us up…and hey, who doesn’t like a bent sense of humour from time to time? Buckle in…this is about to get weird…and at some point, you will be thinking “that boy ain’t right” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Streaming is a very cool way to access tens of millions of songs with a few pokes on your phone…the idea of being able to listen to virtually any song from any era of human history with such ease is something akin to magic… The downside of streaming is that it doesn’t provide any context to what we’re hearing…a continuous stream of music tells us nothing about the artist or the song…it’s just music, standing alone with nothing to anchor it to anything… It was different in the old days…if you bought an album, dammit, that was an investment…you paid money for it, which created a fiscal relationship with the artist…that meant you were more likely to stick with an album and get deeper into the artist and the songs…otherwise, you had this nagging feeling you had wasted your money… Context means so much to the enjoyment of music—which is probably a reason you’re listening to me right now…you want more than the notes that make up a song… Yeah, sometimes a song is just a song…you know, it’s got a good beat, you can dance to it and maybe sing along…it doesn’t really mean anything more than that… But some songs are very deep…they actually form some part of a historical record…they tell the story of real people, real events and the things that came after… That’s where we’re going with this show: everything we’re about to hear is based on fact, on history, on actual events…and you may be shocked by the truth beyond songs that you’ve been digging all your life…this isn’t anything you’re gonna get from a stream…trust me… Songs in this episode: The Clash - White Riot Boomtown Rats - I Don't Like Monday's U2 - Sunday Bloody Sunday REM - What's the Frequency Kenneth? Pearl Jam - Jeremy Nirvana - Polly The Tragically Hip - Wheat Kings Filter - Hey Man, Nice Shot! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's another bonus episode and this one by request. Someone asked recently: "Have you ever done a show about alt-rocks really out-there people? I don't mean that they've done terrible things...just...they have their challenges?"Why yes we have...about 12 years ago in fact. This is Alt-Rocks Craziest People. Songs used in this episode: Iggy Pop - Real Wild Child David Bowie - Alladin Sane Joy Division - She's Lost Control Killing Joke - Love Like Blood The Verve - The Drugs Don't Work Nivana - On A Plain Courtney Love - Mono The Vines - Highly Evolved The Libertines - Up The Bracket Pre) Thing - Faded Love Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When we started posting "bonus" epiosodes of the Ongoing History, lots of people began requesting topics...wondering if we had ever covered them. With 800+ shows in the vault, there is a good chance that we have. One request came to us from a drummer who asked "I'm sure you've done shows about singers and guitarists...but what about drummers? I play the drums and often am the butt of jokes because...well I play the drums". Well...good thing you asked becasue in May of 2004 we paid homage to the Drummer. And here it is...in Podcast form. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every song comes from some sort of story. Sometimes it’s just the story of a feeling…good or bad…or maybe it’s just a way of getting a point of view across. Other songs are actual stories. They have a narrative, characters, drama, beginning, middle and end. But what if you’re a composer and you have a story that is too long….too complex to fit in the standard four minute song. Well then maybe you need to think about breaking it out to its constituent parts and telling the story across multiple songs. You do this over enough songs and you create a concept album. A record where a story or a variety of themes tie everything together front to back and back to front. Your four-minute short story has turned into an hour-long novel. This is part 2 of the history of the concept album in alt-rock. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's not easy making a living as a rock band in Canada... This is afterall the second largest country in the world. And when you consider that the Trans-Canada Highway is over 7600 kilometers long, and there is nearly 10 million square kilomters of land spead out over 6 time zones, well...it's a little daunting to say the least. And even though 77% of Canada's 36 million people live in big cities, bands still have to work really really hard to reach everyone. It's even harder when you factor in that we live right next door to the largest exporter of pop-culture in the universe. Geography has chewed up the domestic careers of countless bands...but some have it figured out. They've got the routine and fanbase all figured out. They may not be rich, but they are making a solid and respectable living as rock stars in Canada. Sloan is one of those bands. They've been around since 1991and have become somewhat of a Canadian institution. This is Sloan in Their Own Words...Part 2. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are many ways to tell a story...a book, a movie, at TV, a comic book. You also use music of course; a ballad is a story set to music, a lot of music videos tell a story. Operas and ballet are more grand. The other musical option is the concept album. These are records where all the songs, all the imagery, is somehow tied togethor by some sort of unifying theme or thesis. The music, the lyrics and sometimes even the artwork come togehtor to tell a story. These were big in the '60's and 70's but they were seen as old rock and needed to be expunged from popular culture. But then a funny thing happened. They started to make a comeback...the stigma vanished, and they even found a place in Alt-Rock. Here...let me show you. Songs in this episode: Green Day - American Idiot, David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust, Kraftwerk - Computer Love, Husker Du - Pink Turns to Blue, Nine Inch Nails - Hurt, Smashing Pumpkins - Bullet With Butterfly Wings, Weezer - No Other One, Tool - Stinkfist, Marilyn Manson - Beautiful People Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Over the years, there have been a good number of Canadian bands that have gone on hiatus, broken up, taken time apart....and eventually reunited. Some have made it work....others not so much. Take Sloan for example. Aside from a brief 2 year hiatus between 1994 and 1996...we'll explain...they've been putting out music since 1991 and really, can you imagine a Canadian rock music scene without them? Fortunately for us, we were able to get Chris Murphy and Jay Ferguson in a studio and we thought it best to get them to explain the history of Sloan...in their own words. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Okay here is something that may shock you. As far as scientists can tell, there is no biological or evolutionary need for humans to have…music. As a species, we could get along just fine without it. Life would be much duller but we would be okay. Yet there is something about our brains…we’re hard wired to both crave and create music. Bottom line is that music is literally part of your DNA, which brings up some interesting issues. Welcome to an episode that I call “Medical Mysteries of Music” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sometimes when you’re in a band, you have ideas and ambitions that might not line up exactly with what your band is doing. This can cause tension, friction, confusion...suspicion. So, one of two things can happen: the band can break up and use the "creative differences excuse", or you can reach some sort of agreement where the keener can do whatever it is they want and everyone can then get back down to business. Sometimes this works...and sometimes it doesn't. This is what happens when someone in a band says, "Screw you...I'm going solo!" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alright, let’s face it. My entire carrier is based on obscure information. The weirder stuff I can find out about a band, an artist, a musician, a performer…the better. However. Obscure information does not necessarily mean useful information. But I don’t think there is anything wrong with useless information. This is the fun stuff…the bits of trivia that gives things spice. You can use it to win bar bets and I’m glad I know it because it’s just fun! So, I think it’s time that I gather this information and give it to you as one bit glob and data dump. Use it however you would like…I call this The Completely Useless Information Show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're going to dispel some myths about the rock star. Over the decades, most people have come to believe that rock stars...of both sexes...are drunken, drugged out sex machines that had they not learned to play an instrument would have had a hard time holding down the worse type of minimum wage job. But being a rock star isn't necessarily synonymous with having the intellect and manners of a caveman. Don't believe us? Have a listen and you'll see. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's not only expensive to put on a concert or a tour, but it's also risky. There's the whole issue of liabiltiy. If a fan gets hurt or killed, the resulting lawsuits can be crippling. You need insurance. You know...just in case something awful happens. And awful things do happen. No one goes to or holds a concert with the idea of anyone being hurt...but...stuff happens. Well, what kind of stuff? Well...I'm glad you asked Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ska was born in Jamaica in the 1950's. It was declared over at least twice. The first wave pettered out in the 1960's as Reggae took hold. Then in the early 1980's, post-punk Ska was suddenly deemed passe. But on both occasions, Ska rose from the dead and came back even stronger. Ska is not onto its 3rd wave...and that's where we are going. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How many of today's Ska fans...and there are millions and millions of them all across the world...realise how deep and how rich, and how complicated the history of this music really is? From first wave, through second wave, and finally the present third wave of Ska...We think it's time to check it out. This is the first part of our in depth look at the history of Ska. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this Podcast, conclude our 2009 profile of Rage Against The Machine. Few bands in Alt-Rock are as passionate, powerful and influenctial as these four guys. 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

Every walk of life has its stars...the famous people who get all the attention. In business it's the CEO's, in sports the athletes. In movies it's the actors and to some extent, the directors. And in music it's the musicians...and the singers. But to be honest, these people are just the faces of their respective industries and pursuits. Some have real power and influcence...others are just figureheads and pupets. Whatever the case, behind them...behind the famous people...are armies of people who made it possible for these folks to do what they do. This is the kind of stuff I want to explore on this program. The people deep behind the music and who never got the credit. Until now... 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 megaphone.fm/adchoices

I hate not finishing something I start…for example, if I pick up a novel, I’m determined to finish the thing even if I hate it… But then I look around the house and I see all the jobs that I didn’t complete…organizing the basement…filing all CDs and records…that little project in the back corner of the garden that—well, I don’t even remember what I was trying to do there… Then there’s my novel…I’ve wrote two chapters in a flurry of creativity year ago—and I haven’t touched it since…it’s been so long that the file was written in WordPerfect…I hope I can still open it…I’ll get around to checking that…. All this unfinished business really bothered me—until I saw something that made me feel so much better… It was in china...north of Beijing is a giant amusement park that from the highway looks a lot like Disneyland…it’s called wonderland…it was supposed to attract millions of visitors from all across the country… But then in 1998, investors pulled out…120 acres of half-finished, abandoned, fairytale-themed amusement park…it was so weird…all this time and money and labour put into something only to never see it actually work out… Which brings me to this…just because you start on an album doesn’t mean you’ll ever finish it…and even if you do, it doesn’t mean it’ll ever get released… There are dozens and dozens and dozens of “lost” albums sitting in vaults and on hard drives all over the world…who made them?...and what happened?...let’s take a look—and maybe even a listen… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For this weeks bonus Ongoing History Podcast, we go back to January 2005 and our look at Christian Rock. In this episode we trace its history and evolution of in the Alt-Rock world. It's not all Creed! Thankfully... Special thanks to Brad from Brampton, Ontraio who asked for Alan's thoughts on the genre. And fortunately, we had one on file! Here it is! Enjoy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to a show about crime—specifically crimes committed by performers in alt-rock…and i’m not talking about petty misdemeanors, bar fights, minor felonies, drug convictions or overnight stays in the drunk tank…the topic is real crime and hard time…arrests, convictions and long-term jail sentences—in some cases, sentences scheduled to last decades…robbery, murder, child abuse…there’s some scary stuff coming up here… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For decades, the attitude was that if you recorded for an independent label, you were in the minor leagues…after all, if you were any good or you made music that the masses were likely to enjoy, you’d have been picked up by a major label, right?... The world of indie rock—which itself was a subset within the already left-of-centre alternative rock scene—was a place to put all the extra weird misfits or those whose talent was questioned… Totally unfair…mostly…yes, there were plenty of dregs when it came to indie rock…but this is also the universe where people took chances…and every once in a while, something great inevitably happened…a new sound…a new trend…a new band…even just a new song… And when things got weird with the music establishment in the era of music piracy and illegal downloads, it was the indie world that was forced to step up and figure what everyone needed to do… This is part four of our history of indie rock… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For this weeks bonus Ongoing History Podcast, we go back to early 2005 and our profile of Green Day. In this episode we trace their history from their very beginnings before the band even formed, right up to the release of their "comeback album" American Idiot. Special thanks to Colin who asked: "Hey Alan...have you ever done a show about the history of Green Day"?Why yes we have Colin...13 years ago. And here it is again! Enjoy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There was a time when indie music was ignored by most people…the thinking was that if the music was any good, then it would have been picked up and released by a major label… And there was some merit to that argument…there was a time when the major labels—back when there were six or seven of them—scooped up all the best stuff…they could afford to take those kinds of chances back then…the indie labels were, for the most part, left with the dregs… I know, I know…that sounds shortsighted, elitist and unfair…but there really was that imbalance in quality—generally speaking, anyway… Indie and alternative music was looked upon as the domain of weirdos and outliers—stuff that just wasn’t good enough for everyone to enjoy… For the musicians who made that kind of music, the labels that distributed it and the fans that enjoyed it, that was fine…they were penned off in their own little parallel universe, free to do things as they pleased… So this music lived in its little petri dish and grew…and grew…and grew…and by the time we got to the early 90s, no one was in a position to ignore anything… This is part three of the history of indie music… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The music industry is dominated by three major record labels: Universal, Sony and Warner…they are multi-national entities that control most of the world’s trade in music and all the revenue that goes with it…. But beyond those three companies are hundreds, thousands of labels that do their own thing…and because they are unaffiliated with the big three, we consider them to be “independent”… They are the indie labels….the musicians who record for them are indie artists…this is the universe of the non-mainstream…the experimental, the daring, the outliers, the unusual, the non-conformist—or, if you prefer, the not-ready-for-prime-time…at least not now—and maybe never… The indie universe is the engine of change for rock’n’roll…whatever sounds and trends and fads are coming next often start here…and it’s through their work and their art that we’re all dragged into the future… I shall illustrate…this is part two of the history of indie rock… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’re going to spend a couple of programs tracing the history of “indie rock” and why music that has come up through these ranks has become to important to not just alternative rock but today’s rock’n’roll in general… Our story is of the records and the artists—but it’s also of the labels and the people behind them…you can’t tell one part of the story and not the other… But what are we really talking about?...what, exactly, is “indie rock?”…tough one, so we’ll have to unpack this carefully… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the early days of rock—and we’re talking the 1950s here—the most efficient and cost-effective way to put acts on tour was to bundle them together as a package and put them on the road… In some cases, there would be a common backing band for most of all of the artists…PA equipment—such as it was in those days—was often supplied on site… These became known as caravan tours…guys like Alan Freed, the pioneering disc jockey and Dick Clarke—you know him, right?—took all these acts on the road playing places like theatres and county fairs and wherever else they could find a booking… This package tour approach was pretty common until the late 60s when music business was producing artists big enough to tour on their own and play areas and later stadiums…that’s where the real money was…that and big festivals… But then along came Lollapalooza in 1991…Perry Farrell, singer for Jane’s Addiction, put together a multi-act bill to support what would be the last-ever tour for Jane’s Addiction…the net effect was very much like those old caravan tours… That ’91 tour was successful enough for Lollapalooza to try again in 1992…this time, things were expanded across multiple stages and multiple attractions…and for the next couple of years, Lollapalooza was thetouring music festival for the alternative generation… This spawned imitators: Edgefest…Lilith Fair…Summersault…Another Roadside Attraction…and for a while, it was all pretty cool… Things are different now…Lollapalooza is a static festival held in Chicago ever August…Edgefest, Lilith Fair, Summersault, and Another Roadside Attraction are all defunct… But there was one travelling music festival that survived for 24 years…and it’s been so big that no one knows for sure how many acts have played it… This is the history of the Warped Tour. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No one is born a rock star…well, maybe in terms of their attitude but not in terms of vocation…you gotta have the talent and you need to put in the work if you want to achieve actual rock star status… But that takes a lot of time and a lot of effort…and before you get to the stage where people acknowledge your rock star-ness, there are lots of twists and turns, false starts and dead ends… Later, when you’re rich and famous, these early attempts become part of your archeological record…some of this stuff may be found in shallow graves…the rest may be buried very, very deeply and need serious excavation work… Finding this material used to be hard…tapes were locked away in vaults…other early music on tape was erased, recorded over in order that this tape be reused… Cassettes were placed in shoeboxes and lost in closets…music that was released went out of print and was no longer available for sale… There were fires that destroyed archives…storage sites were wrecked with water damage…and then there were all the legal disputes…who owned all these old recordings…which member of the band?...the record label?...someone else?...until that can be sorted out, this music remained unheard… Some of this material did leak out and was released on bootleg albums and CDs, but they were very hard to come by… But then the internet hit…slowly, first through file-sharing sites like Napster, these demos, alternate takes and long-lost recordings started changing hands…and then came YouTube…that’s a treasure trove of old music… Finally, there are box sets and reissues…as physical music sales, record labels are looking deep into the catalogues to find stuff that might entice fans to buy high-margin physical product… The result is that today, a lot of the heavy archeological excavations have already been done for us…and I think it’s time we sifted through the results, don’t you? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Buying concert tickets used to be easy…you show a show you wanted to see, went down to the box office, plunked down some cash and in exchange were given a couple of stiff pieces of paper with some words on them… When it came time for the show, you presented those pieces of paper to a person at the door who torn them in half—and you went inside to enjoy the gig… It really was that simple—in theory, anyway…it wasn’t, but we’ll get to that… As time went on, buying concert tickets got more complicated…through the mail…credit cards…bar codes… Then the local ticket sellers vanished, replaced by a big mega-corporation…physical box offices started disappearing…the internet came along with online sales…scalpers…the secondary market…bots…and all the while, concerts and touring became big, big, big business… These days, buying concert tickets is really confusing…you still exchange money for admission to gigs, but the experience has very little in common with the so-called good old days… Stay with me…i’m going to give you the honest truth about concert tickets… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People often ask me where I come up with ideas for this program…my answer is always the same… you know that feeling when it’s Sunday night and you promise yourself you’ll start on that assignment that’s due the next morning as soon as “the Simpsons” is over?... Yeah, that’s me…every week…and after more than 700 of these one-hour assignments stretching back to 1993, I hit a wall…total writer’s block… I started to panic…there are hard deadlines…I have a contract…I’m expected to deliver another new show…there are radio stations all over the place that need new programming from me…what the hell am I gonna talk about this time when I got nothin’?... I mean, this is the seven hundredth and forty-sev— Wait…show number 747?...that’s the same as the airliner…what about stories of alt-rock and airplanes?... And so I started go back through all my files—and sure enough, there’s tons of stuff on the subject…plane crashes, near-misses, air rage, terrorist bombings… Well, that settles it…show number 747 will be able civil aviation and alt-rock…there…that wasn’t so hard, was it?... Dodged that bullet for another week…. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I don’t know if you realize this, but the music festival isn’t a modern creation…people have been gathering in fields to hear music for centuries…and in some cases, those original festivals are still happening… Ever hear of Fiera Della Frecagnola?...it started in the village of Cannalonga, up in the mountains in the south of Italy…as far as we’ve been able to tell, the first gig was in 1450…and it’s still happening today… There are other long-timey festivals in Germany, England, India, Latvia…so this isn’t a new thing… The first modern music festival—the thing that would be recognizable to us today—would be Monterey Pop, which was held in San Francisco in the summer of 1967…that led to Woodstock, Glastonbury, Roskilde and a ton of others… But the 1990s was the decade where the festival really came into its own with a series of regular events that reappeared year after year in the same spot—or ones that moved from place to place… Europeans were pretty used to standing in fields in the mud and the rain and the heat…but we north Americans were late to the party…there was no tradition of us doing anything like that…we’d go to the occasional outdoor gig, but it wasn’t the lifestyle thing it had become in other parts of the world… But by the time the decade was over, we had embraced the summer festival…now we have our own events and traditions…and it couldn’t have happened without the 90s alt-rock nation… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Canada is now the sixth-largest music market in the world…only the US., Japan, the UK, Germany and France are bigger…not bad, considering that we’re living right next door to the biggest exporter of popular culture in the known universe—and considering that unlike Japan, Germany and France, most of our domestic music industry isn’t isolated and protected because of language… I mean, the whole world consumes English-language music…what’s the market for Japanese music outside Japan?...or German music outside of Germany?... Then there’s the matter of population…of those top six nations, Canada, with 36 million people, has the smallest number people…compare that to 66 million in both the UK and France and 83 million Germany… Canada also exports far more music to the rest of the world than we should…every year, the export numbers grow bigger and bigger thanks to stars like Drake, The Weeknd, Justin Bieber, Alessia Cara, Arcade Fire and a long list of artists that came before: Alanis Morrissette, Sarah McLachlan, Celine Dion, Shania Twain, Rush, The Guess Who and dozens and dozens of others… And maybe most important of all, Canada has a super-strong domestic market…Canadians listen to and support Canadian music…and the country tends to be very proud of its homegrown talent…just look at the national outpouring of affection for The Tragically Hip in the summer of 2016… But it wasn’t always this way…there was a time when “Canadian music” was a synonym for “substandard” and “not very good”…Canadians went out of their way to avoid Canadian music—unless it had received a stamp of approval from music fans in the United States…that was the only form of validation the country would accept… That attitude is pretty much extinct now…and the roots of our current musical nationalism can be traced back to the days of the alt-rock 90s… This is chapter 8 of our look at that decade…let’s call it “The CanRock Revolution”… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the great things about the alt-rock revolution of the 1990s was its diversity… The sounds from this part of the rock universe had always been varied…that’s because the idea of “alternative music” was so amorphous…if it was (a) non-mainstream and ignored by most radio stations; (b) a little left of centre in terms of aesthetics; and (c) considered weird by the majority, then it qualified as “alternative” by default, simply because the was no other way to categorize it…and humans love to organize things into piles, right?... Multiple genres thrived in the alt-rock universe…plus there were all the sub-genres and sub-sub-genres and even sub-sub-sub-genres…this mean that if you into alternative music before the 1990s, you were spoiled for choice…there was something for everyone… Then along came grunge, the biggest sound of the decade…it ripped a whole in the music-space-time continuum, opening a hole into this parallel universe, allowing all these sounds to invade the mainstream… And because these sounds and scenes and sub-genres had been happily evolving almost unseen for years, the people making this music knew what they were doing…the mainstream was flooded with new songs from scenes that were already mature—or at least close to it… Never before had so much solid music from so many seasoned performers been waiting in wings, ready to show their stuff…and when they got their chance—wow… This is our look at the alt-rock of the 1990s, part 7… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices