Ongoing History of New Music

Hey, it's Alan Cross. For the next few weeks of the Podcast, we’re diving deep into the Ongoing History of New Music Archives with a series called “The Top 100 Moments in New Rock”. In this ten-part series, we’re going to look at the 100 most significant events in new rock history...some are obvious–you know, the big stuff that made the news...you can’t ignore those. But we’re also going to look at the small things that are at the root of some of the big things...it’s a fascinating way to look at history and society and art. This originally aired 20 years ago in the spring of 2004…and we thought it might be fun to hear where we’ve been, how things used to be, and how much everything has changed since. This is Part 7 in the series. We hope you enjoy this look back. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, it's Alan Cross. For the next few weeks of the Podcast, we’re diving deep into the Ongoing History of New Music Archives with a series called “The Top 100 Moments in New Rock”. In this ten-part series, we’re going to look at the 100 most significant events in new rock history...some are obvious–you know, the big stuff that made the news...you can’t ignore those. But we’re also going to look at the small things that are at the root of some of the big things...it’s a fascinating way to look at history and society and art. This originally aired 20 years ago in the spring of 2004…and we thought it might be fun to hear where we’ve been, how things used to be, and how much everything has changed since. This is Part 6 in the series. We hope you enjoy this look back. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, it's Alan Cross. For the next few weeks of the Podcast, we’re diving deep into the Ongoing History of New Music Archives with a series called “The Top 100 Moments in New Rock”. In this ten-part series, we’re going to look at the 100 most significant events in new rock history...some are obvious–you know, the big stuff that made the news...you can’t ignore those. But we’re also going to look at the small things that are at the root of some of the big things...it’s a fascinating way to look at history and society and art. This originally aired 20 years ago in the spring of 2004…and we thought it might be fun to hear where we’ve been, how things used to be, and how much everything has changed since. This is Part 5 in the series. We hope you enjoy this look back. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, it's Alan Cross. For the next few weeks of the Podcast, we’re diving deep into the Ongoing History of New Music Archives with a series called “The Top 100 Moments in New Rock”. In this ten-part series, we’re going to look at the 100 most significant events in new rock history...some are obvious–you know, the big stuff that made the news...you can’t ignore those. But we’re also going to look at the small things that are at the root of some of the big things...it’s a fascinating way to look at history and society and art. This originally aired 20 years ago in the spring of 2004…and we thought it might be fun to hear where we’ve been, how things used to be, and how much everything has changed since. This is Part 4 in the series. We hope you enjoy this look back. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1931, a larger than life prospector, in search of Slumach’s legendary lost gold mine goes missing in the wilderness of British Columbia. In this episode, we retrace the epic search and rescue efforts that went into looking for the missing prospector as well potential clues left behind at his campsite, that point to an even bigger mystery of what happened to Volcanic Brown? Host: Kru Williams Guest: Adam Palmer Facebook - @HISTORYCanada Instagram - @deadmanscurse Instagram - @Historyca Instagram - @kru_williams Twitter - @HistoryTVCanada Curiouscast website: https://curiouscast.ca/ Great Pacific Media Website: https://greatpacifictv.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, it's Alan Cross. For the next few weeks of the Podcast, we’re diving deep into the Ongoing History of New Music Archives with a series called “The Top 100 Moments in New Rock”. In this ten-part series, we’re going to look at the 100 most significant events in new rock history...some are obvious–you know, the big stuff that made the news...you can’t ignore those. But we’re also going to look at the small things that are at the root of some of the big things...it’s a fascinating way to look at history and society and art. This originally aired 20 years ago in the spring of 2004…and we thought it might be fun to hear where we’ve been, how things used to be, and how much everything has changed since. This is Part 3 in the series. We hope you enjoy this look back. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, it's Alan Cross. For the next few weeks of the Podcast, we’re diving deep into the Ongoing History of New Music Archives with a series called “The Top 100 Moments in New Rock”. In this ten-part series, we’re going to look at the 100 most significant events in new rock history...some are obvious–you know, the big stuff that made the news...you can’t ignore those. But we’re also going to look at the small things that are at the root of some of the big things...it’s a fascinating way to look at history and society and art. This originally aired 20 years ago in the spring of 2004…and we thought it might be fun to hear where we’ve been, how things used to be, and how much everything has changed since. This is Part 2 in the series. We hope you enjoy this look back. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, it's Alan Cross. For the next few weeks of the Podcast, we’re diving deep into the Ongoing History of New Music Archives with a series called “The Top 100 Moments in New Rock”. This originally aired 20 years ago in the spring of 2004…and we thought it might be fun to hear where we’ve been, how things used to be, and how much everything has changed since. We hope you enjoy this look-back… When a lot of people look at history, they only look at the big stuff...you know, the wars, the plagues, the disasters–you know what I mean? All those things are important, but they don’t even begin to tell half the story. To understand history, any kind of history is to also look at the little moments You know what I’m talking about...tiny, boring events and decisions that seemed completely innocuous and unimportant–or even meaningless–when they happened, yet eventually the consequences proved to be unbelievably huge. That’s what this ten-part series will be like...we’re going to look at the 100 most significant events in new rock history...some are obvious–you know, the big stuff that made the news...you can’t ignore those... But we’re also going to look at the small things that are at the root of some of the big things...it’s a fascinating way to look at history and society and art. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You would think that being a musician would be a very safe existence…I mean, your job is to write and perform music…yeah, you might get into the odd altercation and fight, but it’s not like you’re going to war, right?...yet every once in a while, we hear about a musician being murdered… The earliest example I can find is Alessandro Stradella, an Italian composer of classical music…back in his day—which was the mid-1600s—he was quite the star and was very influential with his six operas, 170 cantatas, and a long list of instrumental compositions… But then on February 25, 1682, he was found stabbed to death in a public square in Genoa…no one was ever convicted although the story is that he was murdered by one of three brothers who accused Stradella of seducing their sister… The first musician I know of who got shot was Pinetop Smith, a boogie-woogie piano player from Chicago…in 1929, just as he was about to go into a recording session, he was shot during a fight at a dance hall…he might not have been the intended victim, but he died all the same… And the first musician of the rock’n’roll era to be murdered was probably Sam Cooke on December 11, 1964…fantastic soul singer…he took a gunshot wound to the chest when Bertha Franklin, the manager of the Hacienda Motel in South Central L.A.…she said it was in self-defence but even today, there are a lot of questions about the case…How many other rock musicians have been murdered since then?...fortunately, not a lot…but there is a tragic list…let’s go through it… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Next to music and my dogs, my biggest obsession is cars…I’ve always been a car nut…i’m one of those people with a list of cars I’ll buy when I win the lottery… I’ll start with production sports cars…a Porsche 911 Turbo 4 will be my daily driver, although there will be a Lamborghini Uris SUV for those times I need to haul people and stuff…for those summer days, I think a McLaren 750s Spider would be cool… I’ll need a car for track days, of course…no one else in the neighbourhood would have a Koenigsegg…I’d probably order the Jekso Absolute…1600 horsepower sounds about right… And just to show everyone that I’m not out to completely destroy the planet, there will be at least one EV…right now, that would be a Rimac Nevera… That’s what? Four million dollars worth of vehicles?...not including insurance and maintenance, of course…I’m never going to win that kind of lottery, but it’s nice to dream… For other people, though, this is the kind of machinery sitting in their air-conditioned, highly secure underground garages…that includes a lot of rock stars… Eric Clapton is so well-known at Ferrari that the company built him a custom one-of-a-kind model that probably cost him upwards of five million…Neil Peart had a selection of very collectible sports cars from the 1960s, all in silver… Brian Johnson of AC/DC has a bunch of Bentleys, Ferraris, and some classic race cars…same with Nick Mason of Pink Floyd…he’s even written a book about this collection… Then there’s everything we use in the car to listen to music…radio, car audio, satellite radio, infotainment systems and all that… All this got me thinking about the relationship between cars and rock…the two things go hand-in-hand…I think we should look at this history, don’t you? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every once in a long while, a new genre of popular music emerges, evolves a little bit and then stays almost exactly the same with only the slightest of variations…not that there’s anything wrong with that…a formula is discovered…it seems to work…so why change it?... Old-school 12-bar blues is an example…it features one of the most common chord progressions in Western music…the style of lyrics, phrasing, structure, and duration have been pretty much standard since the days of gospel and spirituals and African-based oral traditions…an Alabama musician named W.C. Handy was the first to codify 12-bar blues playing around 1905… Ska might be an example…it has many different flavours, but there are common components under the hood, rooted in playing on the off-beat—the “one” and “three” instead of the “two” and “four”… You might say the same about Reggae and its foundations in the debow beat, although you’ll probably get a little pushback from fans… Lemme throw this into the mix: garage rock…two or three chords played on guitar, bass, and drums with a loose, rebellious vibe…nothing too complicated…it’s just gotta feel good… And here’s one more that might not spring to mind right away: surf music…it, too, can come in different forms…as a type of garage rock…it can be punky…it can be hardcore…it’s great for skateboarding or snowboarding…and yes, it’s also about the beach, the boards, and the swells… But it’s also more than that…it’s about guitars, amps, pedals, amps, cars, girls, beer, and parties…it can feature vocals but it might be best experienced as instrumentals…. There’s a lot more to surf music than you might think…and its importance and influence and legacy goes far beyond the beach...…here…let me show you. Show contact info: X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross Website: curiouscast.ca Email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I want you to take a deep breath… It’s only when we focus on our breathing that we realize how important it is that 21% of our atmosphere is made up of oxygen…that is the ideal amount… Drop too, say 15%, and it would cause all sorts of mental and physical impairment…if the oxygen levels were to increase suddenly, we’d suffer “oxygen toxicity,” meaning that our cells would oxidize, leading to exhaustion and death… Meanwhile, spiders, roaches, and other crawly things would grow bigger and bigger because of their biology… if you think we have a wildfire problem now, imagine if those fires had more oxygen as fuel… So, unless you’re hoping for a burning planet covered in spiders the size of a compact car, 21% it is… Music is such an integral of our lives that we have no idea how important it is…I can even tell you…a study by Deezer, the French streaming service, says that to maintain a healthy lifestyle, we should listen to 78 minutes of music per day… The study broke things down even further…that 78 minutes should be portioned this way for maximum benefit… · 14 minutes of uplifting music to exercise your happiness. · 16 minutes of calming music · 16 minutes of music that counteracts sadness. · 15 minutes of motivational music to help with concentration. · And 17 minutes of music that will help you deal with anger. A few suggestions come with the study, too. Abba’s “Dancing Queen” is an example of the sort of happy music we should appreciate…when it comes to anger management, AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” is about perfect, although certain tracks from Rammstein and Metallica are good, too—and Mozart for some reason… This stuff fascinates me…and whenever I run across a study or some research that connects music and the brain and our overall mental and physical help, I bookmark it…and I’ve bookmarked so much that we can now do a full program on it… This is another instalment of “The Medical Mysteries of Music” Show contact info: X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross Website: curiouscast.ca Email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the most attractive things about rock is that it’s often dangerous…from the very beginning, rock has been about rebellion, a disregard for the rules, and thumbing its nose at the status quo…rage against the machine summed it up nicely with their song “killing in the name… f-you, I won’t do what you tell me… There’s an edginess to rock that’s addictive…most of us live pretty normal lives, so there’s something cathartic seeing rock stars live out our wildest, most reckless impulses and fantasies…rock stars get to do what we wish we could… When we go to a show, there’s always that hope we’re going to see and experience something a little unhinged, unpredictable, and primal…between gigs, we like to soak up the gossip and stories of bad behaviour from books, biopics, and social media… The music is fine…but we also want spectacle on and off stage… It’s all in good fun—until it’s not…there are limits to what we think is okay…legal lines can be crossed…and there are aesthetic, ethical, and moral areas that are just off limits… But here’s the thing about some artists…they don’t care…they live in their own reality where the normal rules of society just don’t hold…we might see behaviours that are thoughtless, selfish, overly audacious, negligent, self-destructive, incredibly violent, and downright criminal… For some, this is a lifestyle…for others, their dangerousness relates to illness, out-of-control passions, and, in some cases negligence and misadventure… In short, there’s a subset of rock stars who are genuinely dangerous, not to themselves but others…and once we start seeking out these people and examining their actions, what we find can be terrifying on a series of different levels. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 1990s was a golden era for Gen X music fans…classic and heritage artists were still a thing, but it was clear that a new generation of rock artists was in control and was releasing music that captured the hopes, dreams, wishes, anger, and aggression of young people…we hadn’t seen that kind of thing since the 70s during the punk, post-punk, and new wave times…and for a little while, pop was not dominant…it was a time for rock-with-a-capital-R… Things really got into gear in 1991…momentum carried over to 1992 and 1993…and by the time we got to 1994, we were living in an alt-rock world…was it the greatest year for alternative ever?...maybe…let’s explore that… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Usually, the whole idea of being famous is to be, well, famous…you’re known by everyone…your face is everywhere…you’re a celebrity…and you get invited to the best parties, you get endorsements, you get free stuff… Sure, there’s a trade-off…your right to privacy is greatly diminished…your every move is scrutinized…it might become harder to maintain meaningful relationships…and then there’s the constant pressure to live up to this thing you’ve become…this is emotionally draining… After a while, you may start to resent this fame thing…the challenges and pitfalls can overshadow all the perks… But you can also be famous and not famous at the same time…you just have to be very, very careful about revealing who you are… There’s the story of Comte de Saint-German…he was some kind of adventurer in the 1700s who popped up throughout Europe…he spoke almost every language on the continent, knew a lot about chemistry, and was quite the musician….he was so mysterious and amazing that he acquired the nickname “the wonderman”… Remember tank man?... He’s the guy who held up that row of tanks during the crackdown on Tiananmen square in China…no clue who this dude is… Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?...is he the creator of bitcoin?...he disappeared from the internet around 2014 and stayed hidden…there are theories but nothing concrete… Let’s riff on that a little bit more…can you be a famous musician and still be able to walk through the mall without anyone knowing you are?...yes…it’s difficult and comes with its own tradeoffs, but it can be done…plus you have to work very hard to maintain the art of hiding in plain site… This is the history of anonymous artists from the world of rock… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When something bad happens, we want to know why…the weirder and badder the event, the more we need to know… It can’t possibly be random…someone needs to be responsible and held accountable…someone needs to be blamed…and there had better not be any loose ends… Certain segments of the population have always been suspicious of the official story…forget the simplest of most logical explanation…these awful events or phenomenon’s are the work of some kind of secret cabal or organization pulling the strings of life on earth…it was a conspiracy… For example, the most famous murder of modern times was the assassination of JFK on November 22, 1963…more than sixty years later, it seems like no one believes that lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman… To be fair, they might be right…there’s been a lot of investigation into the JFK case over the decades…i’m one of those nuts who reads, watches, and listens to everything involved with the assassination…and I gotta tell you that i’m convinced this was the result of a loose need-to-know operation involving the CIA, the deep stage, Cuban exiles, and American mobsters… There’s also something called “Occam’s razor” which dates back to the 14th century…this Monk—William of Occam—was annoyed at how people blamed supernatural forces when even the simplest thing went wrong…his answer to that was “look, the simplest and most obvious explanation is usually the correct one”… But try that approach with people who believe the earth is flat and that we never went to the moon…Covid-19 was engineered by the media…and the Illuminati live beneath the Denver airport… The world of conspiracy theories is a bottomless pit of weirdness…and when it comes to music, one of the deepest and strangest of these theories has to do with what happened above a greenhouse in Seattle on April 5, 1994… Boy, have I got stories—multiple stories, in fact—about this one…in fact, it might be the most compressive study you’ve ever heard on the subject…this is uncharted: music and mayhem in the music industry, episode 12: it’s the ever-popular Kurt-Cobain-was-murdered theory… Show contact info: X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross Website: curiouscast.ca Email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Historians love to investigate causes and effects…it’s possible for a teeny-tiny seemingly inconsequential thing to set off a cascading series of events…and before you know it, the universe has changed forever… Let me give you an example…a bunch of inept anarchists in Sarajevo were out to make a statement about the liberation of Bosnia and Herzegovina under occupation of the Austro-Hungarian empire… When the Archduke Franz Ferdinand visited Sarajevo on June 28, 1914…two guys were set to toss a bomb at his six-vehicle motorcade, but they chickened out…then a guy named Nedeljko Cabrinovic threw a second bomb, but it bounced off the back of one of the cars… The archduke, his wife, and the governor of Bosnia sped off—although the governor suggested that they take a slightly different route…the driver—Leopold Lojka—got confused and turned right instead of left into a very narrow street… When he tried to back up, the car stalled—and it stalled right in front of another member of the anarchist group named Gavril Princip…up until that second, he’d been discouraged that the assassination plot had failed and had allegedly slinked off to schiller’s delicatessen to get a sandwich and sulk about the afternoon’s failures… (that’s not true, by the way…it just makes for a better story)… Anyway, Princip’s target sitting directly in front of him, trapped…he pulled out his pistol and fired two shots…one hit the Archduke’s wife, killing her instantly…the other hit Ferdinand in the jugular…he died within half an hour… This created a series of crises involving a web of alliances across Europe and within a few months, the great war had begun, resulting in the deaths of 20 million people and injured 21 million more…it led to the Treaty of Versailles , the humiliation of Germany, the rise of Adolf Hitler, the carnage of World War Two, the spread of Communism, the arms race, the cold war, and the world order as we know it… If Leopold hadn’t hung a right instead of a left—or if you like the myth of Princip going for a sandwich—how would the 20th century have been different?... Why am I recounting this?...because there are ways we can make connections like this in the world of rock….here…let me show you… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the first 60 years of the recorded music industry, things sounded awful…the quality of the recordings people had to put up with were terrible…the old 78 rpm records played on gramophones were no match when it came to hearing music live…we just didn’t have the technology to capture audio so that when we listened back, it sounded real… That began to change in the late 1940s with the introduction of vinyl records: the 33 1/3 rpm vinyl album and the 7-inch 45 rpm single…it changed further with the switch to magnetic recording tape in the early 1950s… New microphones, better tape machines, and further understanding of acoustics when it came to building recording studios…then came better turntables, amplifiers, and speakers…recorded audio started to sound more and more like the real thing… In the middle 50s, people started to hear about something called “high-fidelity”…it was a marketing term invented by the audio industry to describe equipment capable of producing music properly… Once stereo recordings came along in the late 50s, music fans went wild and started buying hi-fi gear for their homes…then their cars…and then for going mobile… It was an endless pursuit for perfect sound, music that was loud, clean, clear, and accurate…meanwhile, recording studios were constantly in a state of retrofitting and refurbishment because artists demanded the best for their music… That was the 1970s…in the 1980s, there was a reaction, a backlash, an artistic regression, after the introduction of the compact disc…for some, this music was too perfect, too shiny, too unreal… They felt it contained none of the imperfections that made it human…beauty, they thought, was in the mistakes…that’s what made music authentic…audio quality mattered less than being able to listen to music that obviously came from the heart… These music fans even had a name for this approach…if the best-sounding audio was high-fidelity, then what they wanted was the opposite: low-fidelity…and that aesthetic continues today…this is the history of Lo-Fi music… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the summer of 2006, a young Calgary woman was on top of the world. She had a supportive family, amazing friends and a great job. But life as she knew it came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the night on August 6, 2006. In this episode, Global News senior crime reporter Nancy Hixt shares details of a violent attack- a story that’s every woman’s worst fear. www.calgarycrimestoppers.org - reference case # 06274598 https://newsroom.calgary.ca/sexual-assault-case-from-2006-has-new-lead/ Contact: Instagram: @nancy.hixt Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NancyHixtCrimeBeat/ Email: [email protected] 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

A band is like a plant…stay with me on this…like a plant, a band grows from seeds to maturity, bursts for with new seeds and then eventually withers and dies…it’s the cycle of life, you know?... But like plants (or animals or any other living thing), the lifespan of bands varies greatly…you could last as long as rehearsal—kinda like, what, a dandelion?…or you might find yourself on some kind of 50-year-anniversary tour—the equivalent of a bristlecone pine tree that can live as long as 5,000 years… Okay, I think we’ve tortured this metaphor long enough… Then we have bands that form, rise to a peak, hit something of a downhill slope, and break-up, only to reform again for—well, there could be any number of reasons…and this leads into completely new second act…and thus things begin again—and maybe even under better circumstances than anyone thought possible… Let’s do a case study…let’s have a specific band deconstruct their journey from formation to breakup to reunion…this is the history of Alexisonfire—in their own words… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A boy cannot become a man in the Satere-Mawe tribe of the Amazon Rain Forest until he can stand being stung by a swarm of Bullet ants…they’re called that because it’s said their sting is as painful as being hit by an actual bullet…if the kid can handle it without shedding a single tear, then he is officially a man…I can’t explain it…and I’ll bet that no one in this tribe can, either…it’s just always been their thing, something that has always been done… Let’s try something more modern…have you ever noticed that any depiction of an iPhone or iPad, the time on the device used to be 9:42 am?...now, it’s 9:41…why?... We need to go back to when Steve Jobs’ unveiled the iPhone in 2007… the first image of the iPhone appeared behind jobs at 9:42 am…and for a while, that was the time shown in all ads…but when the iPad came out, the reveal happed at 9:41 am…from then on, it became a rule that time displayed must be at 9:41… The Apple Watch is an exception…the standard advertisement display time is 10:09 am…not one is sure why, although that’s the old Timex watch commercials always had the time as 1:51…10:09 is the mirror image of that… Now think about your car on the driver’s side…if your car is a standard, the pedals from left to right go clutch, brake and accelerator…if it’s an automatic, it’s brake then the accelerator…and that’s the way it is in every car made in the world today…doesn’t matter which side the steering wheel is on…the pedals are always laid out the same from left to right…. But in the early days of the automobile, it wasn’t always this way…sometimes the accelerator was in the middle…sometimes it was on the left…sometimes it was on the steering wheel… The first car with the pedal layout we have today was probably a 1912 Cadillac…that spread throughout the company and then on through Chevrolet and other gm cars…from there, everyone eventually adopted that arrangement…. And since we’re in the car, let me explain your automatic transmission lever…it goes park, reverse, neutral, drive, and low…R,R,N,D,L…that order was laid out in “U.S. department of transportation standard no. 102” which stated the order of gears on automatic transmissions must always be park-reverse-neutral-drive-low…and since America called the shots with the auto industry back then, this law became our universal standard… There are so many things in this world that we just accept without bothering to look for an explanation…they’re there, it’s everywhere, it’s a simple truth of life…but why?... The world of music is filled with things, too… for example, why do we call a certain genre of music “heavy metal?”…who came up with the idea for paying to see a concert?...why would anyone use a toilet plunger together with a trumpet or a beer bottle on a guitar?...why is there music on the phone when we’re put on hold?... Let’s figure this all out…welcome to another edition of “the rock explainer”… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The biggest tech story of recent years has been the rise of artificial intelligence…the subject of ai is everywhere… it’s been “AI this” and “AI that”… The Wikipedia article on ChatGPT, the company that really got things rolling in this area, was the most popular Wikipedia article in all of 2023…50 million visits… That made it more popular than even Christian Ronaldo, the world’s most famous athlete…that’s more than “Barbie” or “Oppenheimer” put together… This tech is being adopted everywhere, mostly for good…just look at the medical field…. Ai is being used to sort through chains of molecules to come up with the next generation of breakthrough drugs, including those that will work on antibiotic-resistant bacteria and the misfolded proteins behind Alzheimer’s…ai is being trained to quickly find things in scans and x-rays that a human technician might miss… AI can be used to make better decisions in real time…for example, it can learn traffic and pedestrian patterns and synchronize lights for more efficient movement of everyone… AI should even have an impact on fighting climate change by creating better models…and when it comes to world hunger, ai can analyze zillions of data points to help determine what crops, seeds, fertilizers, soil, and so on for maximum efficiency in any area of the world… AI is growing at an exponential rate…it’s predicted that the industry will grow by 250% over the next five years… by 2031, the market for generative ai will be at least one trillion U.S. dollars… But yes, AI can also be used for evil…deep fakes and fake news, copyright infringement and forgery, cybersecurity breaches, manipulation of financial markets… AI is inevitably going to replace humans in a lot of different jobs…there’s a lot to be concerned about… If you’re listening to me, you’ve probably wondered about artificial intelligence and music…that’s good because there’s going to be an impact…best we know where this intersection of music and tech came from so that we can maybe figure out where it’s going…. This is the history and future of AI in music… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Once upon a time, I was deep into collecting bootleg recordings of my favourite bands…and this obsession came from a really good place…at least I thought so… I’d already bought all the albums and singles, collected a bunch of memorabilia, snapped up the t-shirts, and gone to all the shows…but I wanted more…the only place let to go was unofficial—read: illegal—releases… Almost everything I accurate was on cd…some were burned discs that I traded for with other hardcore fans…I might go to eBay once in a while…there were a few stores I knew that stocked these discs for special customers…and whenever I went overseas to certain countries were copyright laws were lax—Russia, Indonesia, a few places in the Caribbean—I’d be sure to visit the market stalls to see what they had…I honestly wasn’t trying to rip off or hurt anyone…I just loved these bands so much that I needed to own a copy of everything they did…once, when I talked about my bootlegs on the radio—probably not a smart idea—I got a letter from the head of a recorded industry organization calling me “morally reprehensible” … But over the years, these hardcopy bootlegs became harder and harder to find, thanks to crackdowns on illegal exploitation of intellectual property, the disappearance of these record stores, and, most importantly, the rise of online file-sharing…by 2008 or so, the physical bootleg market had all but collapsed…I haven’t acquired anything new for my collection for almost a couple of decades now… But I’ve never lost my fascination for this recordings…where did they come from?...how were they made?...who distributed them?...did they really hurt artists and the industry?...and what kind of legacy did old-school bootlegs leave behind?... I’ve found some answers to those questions and more…this is another look at bootlegging, part 2… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey It's Alan...and I want to introduce you to my brand new, one-of-a-kind true crime podcast called Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry. On this podcast I take you inside unbelievable stories of murder, plane crashes, court battles, and even run-ins with the mob! In this podcast you'll hear all about the dark side of world of music. We're releasing new episodes every two weeks, so search for and follow Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry wherever you get your podcasts. I hope you enjoy this sneak peak of Episode 9 "The Disappearance of Richey Edwards" Episode Link: https://megaphone.link/CORU6081355392 Show contact info: X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross Website: curiouscast.ca Email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On December 24, 1877, Thomas Edison filed a patent for a new invention he referred to as a “talking machine”…for the first time ever, audio could be captured, played back, stored, shared, and analyzed… When asked what the point of his machine was, Edison listed some future possibilities…. His phonograph (as he called it) would eventually be used as a method of preserving great speeches….it could also be used for making audio letters, giving dictation, a talking clock, a telephone answering machine, and remote learning…and way down the list was “reproduction of music”… That original talking machine technology has evolved greatly over the years and the “capture and reproduction of music” has moved way up on Edison’s original list of uses…the recorded music industry is now worth tens and tens of billions of dollars… But the phonograph also gave birth to a new type of music industry…when it first went on sale, copyright laws weren’t ready…they had been drafted and enforced with the printed word in mind, not with audio recordings…this meant that people began making recordings that weren’t exactly authorized in the proper ways… This gave birth to another industry, one that worked in the shadows of record labels, music publishers, performing rights organizations, and all the rest of the legitimate record music industry… What started with secretly recorded Edison phonograph cylinders progressed through reel-to-reel tape recordings, unauthorized vinyl records, cassettes, CDs, and digital files freely traded online…you may have some of these recordings in your collection—and you may not even know it… The original name of such recordings is “bootlegs”…here are a few things about them that you might wanna know… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We would not be sitting here talking about rock music if it weren’t for people of African descent…if you start in the present and begin to trace things backward to important innovations and accomplishments, nine times out of ten, you’ll end up exploring something from black culture… And we can go way, way back—right to 1619 when the first slave ship arrived in north America at the British colony of Virginia carrying about 20 captives… Over the centuries that followed, the people of Africa, consisting of many different communities, nations, tribes, and cultures, were brought to the west by force creating wounds that have yet to heal… But more than just bodies made the trip across the Atlantic…these were human beings with identities, history, traditions—and music…and these songs and rhythms helped sustain them during those brutal times… There were work songs, protest songs, satirical songs, songs meant to be sung in the fields and streets, songs that were games in themselves…some had regular rhythms while other contained syncopated beats from traditional dance… Over the centuries, the music evolved, mutated, and spread…spirituals and gospel…blues and boogie-woogie…ragtime and jazz…rhythm and blues and bebop…and in the early 1950s, this music with its rich history and traditions was incorporated with country, western, hillbilly, r&b, and a few other ingredients to become what we call “rock and roll”… Along the way, there were many musical firsts, and landmark contributions by black artists that changed everything…without them, what we call “rock” today and so much of its culture would simply not exist… These people and their accomplishments need to be recognized; commemorated, and celebrated…this is an episode on rock firsts by black artists… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I really, really want to believe…there are trillions of galaxies in the observable universe, each containing billions of stars…there’s gotta be something out there…we can’t be alone… Organisms floating in the acid clouds of Venus…remains of bacteria in the Martian soil…creatures swimming in vast oceans below the ice of Europa…something lurking in the methane lakes of Titan…and that’s just the start… Roswell…the “wow” signal…fast radio bursts…the possibility of a Dyson sphere around “Tabby’s Star”…hints of something on the hydrogen line frequency of 1.42 405 755 117 gigahertz…and now both nasa and the U.S. government have admitted that they don’t know what’s going on with those strange objects that have been buzzing the planet… Our culture has absorbed these mysteries and possibilities…and our music reflects that…this is UFO, UAP’s, aliens, and rock… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey It's Alan...and I want to introduce you to my brand new, one-of-a-kind true crime podcast called Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry. On this podcast I take you inside unbelievable stories of murder, plane crashes, court battles, and even run-ins with the mob! In this podcast you'll hear all about the dark side of world of music. We're releasing new episodes every two weeks, so search for and follow Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry wherever you get your podcasts. I hope you enjoy this sneak peak of Episode 7 "The Linkin Park Cyberstalker" Episode Link: https://megaphone.link/CORU6081355392 Show contact info: X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross Website: curiouscast.ca Email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Decades ago, I was the best man for my buddy Charlie and was in charge of driving the bridal car from the church to the reception…the happy couple were in the back seat…next to me up front was the bride’s sister-in-law… When I started the car, “Welcome To The Jungle” started playing on the radio…the sister-in-law freaked out… “What is this garbage?...turn it off!”…I looked at Charlie…he looked at me and shrugged… no sense in making waves…I switched to a pop station…but the sister-in-law’s violent reaction to the gunners stayed with me… Then not long ago, I was in the car with a friend when rage against the machine’s “Bulls On Parade” came on the radio…I instinctively turned it up…awesome song, right? But my friend shrieked… “What is this [bleep]?” She said…”it’s awful!…you can’t possibly like this…” I was slightly taken aback…we go back a couple of decades and she came from an alt-rock radio background, too…her life used to be filled with this kind of music…how could she not like Rage Against The Machine?... “I don’t know,” she said… “Maybe I’m just getting old…I prefer softer stuff these days”… Ah…there it was again: an example of how someone’s musical tastes evolve with age… it’s just something that happens with most people… most of take that as a given…not me, though…this is something that’s always fascinated me…there has to be some science behind why we listen to different types and styles of music as we go through life… So I tracked down this science and I have some answers…we’ll call this episode “what a drag it is getting old—musically”… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A year ago, I began what will unfortunately be a regular series of these programs from now on…it’s an annual look back on the musicians we lost in the previous year… Rock star deaths have been on our mind since late 2015 when Scott Weiland of the Stone Temple Pilots died, followed a few weeks later by Lemmy of Motorhead…then the floodgates opened in 2016: Bowie, Prince, Leonard Cohen, Glenn Frey of the eagles, both Keith Emerson and Greg Lake from Emerson Lake and Palmer, and George Michael—just to name a few… And since then, it seems we hear about a rock star death every couple of weeks…Tom Petty, Chris Cornell, Chester Bennington, Gregg Allman, Walter Becker of Steely Dan, Chuck Mosley of Faith No More, Andy Fletcher of Depeche Mode, Mark E. Smith of The Fall, Charlie Watts The Rolling Stones…it’s been a lot to take in… Some of these deaths have been of natural causes, disease, and old age…others have involved drugs, alcohol, years of hard living, misadventure, and suicide… Here’s the hard truth: rock has been around for about seventy years…many of the people who have provided us with our favourite music and some of the greatest songs of all time are reaching the end of their lives… No one is getting any younger...and over the next decade, we’re going to lose some of the personalities who have always been with there for us over the last 30, 40, 50, or even 60 years... With that grim reality in mind, I think we need to continue with an annual retrospective at those whom we’ve lost in the last 12 months…they may be gone, but we need to recognize and celebrate their contributions to the world of music...this is 2023 in memoriam... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I’m not gonna lie…I’m addicted to listicles…not the click-baity ones that have sub-headlines like “and you won’t believe #6!”…I’m only interested in the ones that offer interesting or weird facts…usually that means Buzzfeed, Bored Panda, Upworthy, Laughing Squid—you know the kind…“today I learned” and “I was today years old when I discovered”…that sort of thing… Here's one…there is a species of moth that lives in the amazon jungle that drinks the tears of sleeping birds…it’ll sit on a bird’s neck, stick a long proboscis under the bird’s eyelid, and slurp away the tears…I know! Right?... Here’s another: until the 1800s, polite people didn’t eat bananas because their shape made them an “immoral fruit”…importers had to hire women for ads showing them eating bananas to prove that there was nothing wrong with them… Okay, okay…one more…and I’m sorry if this is going to trigger you…if you take public transit, approximately 15% of the air you breath contains human skin…all those floating specs you see in the sunlight?...skin…gross, but I love this stuff… A big part of my job is searching for facts, although most of what I’m looking for involves music…I’ve heard that if you play hip-hop to a wheel of cheese as it’s maturing, the cheese will have a stronger flavor and aroma…as late as 1948, you could win an Olympic medal for music…and if you want to play music for you dog, choose Reggae…scientists have proven that that’s the music they like the most… Over the course of the year of researching and writing this program, I run across all kinds of weird facts…most I can incorporate into various shows…others, not so much… But these orphaned facts need a home…so once every 12 months, I devote a program to clearing out all this information from post-it notes, highlighted passages in books, pages torn from newspapers and magazines, and various files on my computer and throw them all into one program…what you do with this stuff is up to you…this is the annual show I call “60 mind-blowing facts about music in 60 minutes”… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey It's Alan...and I want to introduce you to my brand new, one-of-a-kind true crime podcast called Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry. On this podcast I take you inside unbelievable stories of murder, plane crashes, court battles, and even run-ins with the mob! In this podcast you'll hear all about the dark side of world of music. We're releasing new episodes every two weeks, so search for and follow Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry wherever you get your podcasts. I hope you enjoy this sneak peak of Episode 5 "The Satanic Panic" Episode Link: https://megaphone.link/CORU6081355392 Show contact info: X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross Website: curiouscast.ca Email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s been a rough decade for the electric guitar…sales of new instruments have dropped by a third, from 1.5 million globally to around just one million… Why?...generations brought up on electronics are opting out of creating music with traditional instruments like the guitar…instead, they use laptops, iPads, gear like Ableton Live an any number of programmable keyboard devices… Most guitars are being bought and sold by older players…and there are fewer and fewer of them each year… All this has hurt manufacturers like Gibson, who filed for bankruptcy in 2018…it’s hurt music stores, both big and small…it’s hurt music teachers who have fewer students… Sounds dire, right?...maybe…but there’s one bright spot: there has been a steady rise in the number of young women taking up the electric guitar… According to fender, women now make up at least 50% of all the beginner guitar players in North America and the UK…in South East Asia, that number is more like 70%... That’s interesting, given that it wasn’t all that long ago that it was accepted fact that a girl could not play an electric guitar—not as good as a guy, anyway… That attitude abounded through the 70s and 80s…today, that’s no longer the case…the intimidation factor is gone…women are marching right into male-dominated music stores and buying guitars…some take traditional lessons, but others are using online tutorials so they can avoid any hassles and harassment… And most importantly, we’re seeing more female guitar heroes…you no longer have to be a dude to be a guitar role model…and those are the people we’re going to explore on this episode…this is modern guitar heroes: the women… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is a guitar hero?...yes, yes, it’s a video game that vaguely simulates playing a real guitar…what else?... Yes, yes, it means someone who can rock the “expert level” at guitar hero, the video game…but before that, it meant something totally different… A guitar hero was a guy—and it was almost always a guy—who had achieved a seemingly supernatural mastery of the electric guitar…they were so good that other experts looked to them to learn and for inspiration… Chuck Berry…Jimi Hendrix…Eric Clapton…Jimmy Page…Pete Townshend… Jeff Beck…they were among the first to be declared guitar heroes…they pushed the limits of what could be done with the instrument, amplifiers, and effects pedals… More followed…Eddie Van Halen…Angus Young of AC/DC…The Edge from U2…Slash…Stevie Ray Vaughn…Randy Rhoads… All excellent players…this got me thinking about guitar heroes from the world of alt-rock, specifically from when things exploded in the early 90s?... They aren’t betterthan the first generation of guitar heroes…just different, you know?...let’s make a list, shall we?... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey it’s Alan and this week we’re going to do something a bit different for the podcast… When we recorded our 1000th episode of the ongoing history at Corus Quay…we ended up with a lot of content that we couldn’t fit into the radio show. If you caught last week’s podcast, you will have heard the story of how the ongoing history came to be, and how we got to 1000 shows. You also would have heard part of the Q&A session we did with the Q107 morning show, and our live audience. But…there was so much recorded…and we didn’t want it to go to waste…that we thought, “why not do a second podcast, of just that part of the night” So…here is the full q and a session from the 1000th episode of the ongoing history of new music, recorded live at Corus quay on December 5th 2023…I think you’re going to enjoy this… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Tuesday December 5th, in front of a live audience at Corus Quay, the Ongoing History of New Music recorded the 1000th episode of the radio program. What some people don't know is that this Podcast started out as a radio show in February 1993 on 102.1 The Edge in Toronto. It has taken over 30 years to reach out 1000th episode! This is a podcast of that evening complete with part of the Q&A that took place. Next week there will be a "Part 2" Podcast containing everything not included in this episode. There was a lot of content! Enjoy the 1000th episode of the Ongoing History of New Music, and thank you for your continued support. Show contact info: X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross Website: curiouscast.ca Email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With over 300 OGH podcasts to choose from, we know that sometimes older episodes get lost in the library. So, here is a topic we had a request to dig up again...and this episode first aired on radio in November of 2010 as we look at one of the most under appreciated and underrated members of any rock band...the bass player. These are the most influential bass players in the history of alt-rock. Next week...it's the 1000th episode of the Ongoing History of New Music Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You may be aware of a podcast that came out in the spring of 2020 that sought to get to the bottom of a certain musical mystery…it’s called “wind of change” and it explores the possibility that a metal power ballad was a contributing factor to the fall of the soviet union in the very early 90s… Stay with me… “Wind of Change” was a global hit for The Scorpions; a metal band out of Hanover in what was then WestGermany… The Scorpions sing in English…but they also recorded a Russian version under the name “Veter Peremen”…and when the song was released on January 20, 1991, it became a worldwide hit… Estimates are that it sold 14 million copies…it’s the best-selling single by any German artist…and because it was such a big hit in the USSR, the band presented Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev a gold record…even today, the song is a massive, massive hit among several generations of fans in Eastern Europe… For years, rumours have swirled about this song…it is said that it was the product of a CIA operation design to destabilize Soviet society with its message of change and revolution…it worked so well that by the end of 1991, the Soviet Union had crumbled… Did the CIA commission someone to write “Wind of Change,” get The Scorpions to record it, which somehow helped bring about the end of the USSR from within?...I’m not going to cover that here, so you’ll have to listen to the podcast… But I can tell you that this might not have been the first time rock music was used by a foreign intelligence operation to drive a wedge into a specific society…the popular music of the west—especially the music produced by the USA—was feared by Soviet bloc authorities…but the Soviets also knew that music could also be a weapon against the west… Here’s another theory…could it be that punk rock was actually KGB plot against the west?...did things also operate in the opposite direction…here’s what we know—or at least think we know… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you are a professional musician—that is, you’re being paid to write and perform music and can actually make a living from it—you’re part of an infinitesimal quintile of people who are able to do that… you are living the dream… This, in fact, may be the only career you’ve ever known…you’ve never had a “real” job…maybe you’ve had a chance to see the world because of music…and if you love what you’re doing and the money works, you want this to go on forever…but it won’t…at some point, the music stops… It might not be your fault…the music industry moves fast…one day you’ve got it all figured out, working from immediate deadline to immediate deadline and from gig to gig…and then everything stops… Maybe it happens quickly…maybe it happens slowly then all at once…music changes…the industry changes…trends change…technology changes…and what you offer—what you can do—is no longer in demand… It’s like captain Jean-Luc Picard has said: “you can do everything right and still lose…that’s not weakness…that’s life”… So what’s next?...if you exit the world of music—be it voluntarily or by force—what do you do next?... Maybe it’s best to study what some other musicians have done to transition from rock star to civilian life…this is a look at examples of life after music… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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In the mid-15th century, France was ruled by Louis XI, otherwise known as “Louis the Prudent”...but he was always known as “Louis the Cunning” and “The Universal Spider” because he was always spinning plots and looking for conspiracies...when it came to dissent and wars, he was a brutal sort... Being a despot is hard work and sometimes you need cheering up...that’s why he challenged Abbe De Baigne, a builder of things, to create a brand new musical instrument for his amusement... The result was the piganino, a keyboard that required a number of pigs of varying sizes...each was laid out on a flat surface, smallest to largest...above the hind end of each pig was a spike connected to a piano-like keyboard...by pressing a key, the corresponding pig would be spiked, resulting in an oink of a certain note...it was thus possible to play a tune by poking the pig... It didn’t sound very good, but it worked and Louis XI found it very funny...the pigs did not... Music and technology have always had an interesting relationship...sometimes it’s harmonious and wonderfully...other times—like with the piganino—there’s a hideous clash... ...however, the piganino, invented 600 years ago, was the forerunner of future music-related technologies like sample, sequencing, and synthesis...the tech—or at least some of the concepts—would eventually win out... If we step back and look at the history of science, math, and engineering and the practice of creating the art music, we’ll see that every time the two intersect, technology almost always comes out the winner...and that’s okay... Something that seems radical, evil, transgressive, impure, and corrupting turns out to be a pretty good deal and music is the better for it... Here are some stories about the clashes between tech and music...I’ll lay out the facts and you decide if these were good things or bad... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It was Tuesday, May 24, 2016...you know how when you land the flight attendant says it’s now permissible to “use transmitting and receiving functions your portable devices” while you’re taxiing to the gate?... I’d just landed on a 14-hour flight from Hong Kong...and as soon as I flicked my phone out of airplane mode, it blew up...emails and texts all about one thing: The Tragically Hip had just announced that their singer, Gord Downie, had brain cancer... At first, this didn’t make sense...had the jet lag kicked in already?...was this some kind of hoax?...I mean, this was Gord...he was practically a Canadian superhero...nothing like this was supposed to happen to him... But it was true...the emails and texts kept popping up...dozens, hundreds of them...and we all know how the next 18 months played out... When Gord left us in October 2017, it was really rough...the best tweet I saw that day was “Canada closed: death in the family”...the country spent the next week trying to explain to the rest of the world how a singer of a rock band had brought an entire nation to tears—even the Prime Minister...where else in the world does something like that happen?... The answer is you have to be a special kind of person: artist, writer, thinker, activist, and poet… this is the story of Gord Downie, Canada’s own rock poet… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s 1986 and Michael Morrison is offered the opportunity of a lifetime. A chance to leave his life of poverty in Newark and start afresh. It’s a job offer he can’t afford to refuse. Michael has no idea what this new job has in store. But he soon realizes: he’s just joined ‘the biggest gang in America’. Join Seren Jones to hear Michael’s story and find out what it means to be both Black and Blue. Want to hear more? You can follow along on your favourite podcast app here: https://link.chtbl.com/blackandblue-rssdrop Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When someone dies, our first reaction is disbelief...we’re stunned...that’s immediately followed by a need to know what happened...how?...where?...it’s only natural...we need information to help us process the news and the emotion that comes with it... The next stage is might be “could anything have been done to prevent this?”... “Could someone have helped or intervened?”...In some cases, perhaps...in the case of health issues, maybe not... And finally, there’s this:... “could what happened to that person happen to me?”...again, totally normal... When it comes to the death of a famous musician, there’s an additional aspect to processing the news...chances are we never knew this person as, you know, a person...our only relationship with them has been as a fan...so why does their death affect us?... Here’s a possible answer...although we never knew them, it was through their music that we learned more about ourselves...and in a way, when they die, a little of us dies, too... This might only cause us to go deeper into what happened...we just need to know, to make sense if it, and to put everything to rest the best we can...yes, some people get very nosey and gossipy and intrusive, but there’s always a way to handle what’s known through the public record: family statements, doctors’ accounts, police reports, coroners’ testimony, toxicology examinations, and autopsy results.... And we often can’t look away because we just need to know...this is “the last moments of, part 2”.... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s always a shock when a rock star dies...and our first reaction is “what happened?...how did this person die?”... That’s completely natural...whenever we’re met with something incomprehensible, we demand an explanation...sometimes one comes quickly...other times, it takes days, weeks, months, and even years for the truth to come out—if at all... And how much are we entitled to know?...when do we cross the line from being curious and concerned to gawking and prurient and prying and invading very private space?... Yet there is something to be said for learning about how someone died...maybe there’s a lesson to be learned or a cautionary tale, steps we or someone else can take to make sure something like this never happens again—or at least not as often... A celebrity death is news, part of the public record...and wanting to know what happened helps us process the news and all the emotions that go along with such a death... Besides, some will say, these doomed people are celebrities...and as celebrities, they lived with the idea that the public was interested in multiple aspects of their existence, including how they died...it goes with the territory... And one other thing: could we ourselves ever meet such an end?... With all that in mind, let’s look at some notable rock star deaths, focusing on what happened in the last moments of their time on earth... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The old days of air travel were quite risky…compared to today, the chances of your flight going down were far greater …every airport had kiosks and coin-operating vending machines where you could buy life insurance before you headed to the gate—you know, just in case you thought you weren’t going to make it to your final destination… 1977 was one of the worst years for accidents in aviation history…in addition to several violent hijackings every month—sometimes with fatal results—There were also passenger plane crashes with great loss of life…including the worst aviation disaster of all time when two 747s planes collided on a runway in the Canary Islands, killing 583 people. Frank Sinatra’s mother, the Prime Minister of Yugoslavia, and all but one member of the University of Evansville basketball team died in crashes… But then there were the events of October 20, 1977, when a rickety chartered plane went down in a swamp in Mississippi…on board were members of Lynyrd Skynyrd…six of the 24 passengers died, including singer Ronnie Van Zandt, guitarist Steve Gaines, backup singer Cassie Gaines, and assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick…both pilots also died… What happened? Have I got a story for you... Show contact info: X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross Website: ajournalofmusicalthings.com Email: [email protected] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/uncharted-crime-and-mayhem-in-the-music-industry/id1710775237 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the most important parts of music is beat and rhythm...without beats, without rhythm, there’s no groove...without a groove, there’s no movement or dancing or really physically getting into the music...beats and grooves are essential building blocks for so much of modern music... In some songs, the beat is subtle but there...you feel it without someone having to keep it for you...but in others, you need a timekeeper, someone to emphasize and augment and the beats and the rhythms... For centuries, that job has fallen to drummers and percussionists...but what if a drummer or percussionist isn’t available?...or if you want to try something rhythmic but with different sounds, sounds that a drummer can’t make?...then you might find yourself reaching for a drum machine... Since their introduction in the very early 1980s, drum machines have become an essential part of modern compositions and productions...in fact, it’s impossible to imagine the music we have today without such electronic devices... Oh, we still have human drummers—we always will—but drum machines have taken us places that human timekeepers never could...and I’m speaking as someone who plays drums myself... But how did this all come about?...let’s investigate...this is the history of machines that keep time for our music... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For centuries, there’s been a dance between music and technology with each affecting the other in some way...almost always, though, there’s no fighting progress...music (and everything to do with it) ultimately bends to the needs and demands of new technology... For example, when the Catholic Church built big, echo-y cathedrals in the Middle Ages, the sacred music in those buildings adapted to this new architecture so that it made use of the natural reverb... Fast-forward a bunch of centuries...Thomas Edison’s talking machine, first demonstrated in 1877, and Emile Berliner’s gramophone, which debuted 10 years later, were the first machines able to capture sound, up to three minutes at a time...but because of that recording limit, the standard length of a popular song became about three minutes...the music bent to the limitations of the medium... I can give you other examples: radio changed the way music was consumed, marketed and sold...jukeboxes help spread the word on R&B, country, and rock’n’roll...they were so popular that a coin shortage in 1937 was blamed on the popularity of jukeboxes... Electricity gave us amplifiers and the electric guitar...the microphone turned singers from people who could belt out tunes at high volumes into crooners who used the mic to create softer, more intimate performances... Synthesizers were reviled by many musicians at first because one could make the sounds of an entire orchestra, threatening the livelihoods of professionals...but they were eventually accepted...sampling was thought to be evil and illegal at first, but we worked that out...file-sharing of mp3s meant that no one would ever pay for music again, but now hundreds of millions of people are paying for streaming...there’s more, but you get what I’m talking about... This music-and-tech balance continues today...and on episode five of our look at rock in the 2010s, we’re going to look how that particular dance played out and the effect these interactions had on our music... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We as parents get so little time to ourselves. So if you know when vacationing with kids actually becomes a relaxing vacation… please let us know. In this episode we discuss the literal ups and downs of traveling with kids. You can find and listen to this podcast wherever you get your podcasts: https://link.chtbl.com/badparents Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices