Ongoing History Of New Music

I do not dance…I’m too awkward and too self-aware of my awkwardness…I know we’re all supposed to dance like no one is looking, but when it comes to me, people will look, point, and judge… My wife realizes this…since we were married decades okay, she’s had to be content with the fact that she got that dance at the wedding and that’s pretty much it…and that’s because she’s not into dancing, either… I can feel the judgment.... stop it! This doesn’t mean that music doesn’t move me…I’ve got that involuntary need to move when the music is great…and I don’t mean tapping a toe or nodding my head, although that’s where it starts… Put it this way: I’ve done my time in the pit…I’ve been elbowed, kneed, kicked, head-butted, burn with cigarettes and joints, and doused with water (at least I hope it was water)…no problem because that’s all part of the pit experience…the only thing I haven’t done is stage dove or crowd-surfed…I’m not sure why… But here’s a question: why is there a pit in the first place?...who came up

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

Ride along with 25 year veteran Crime Reporter Nancy Hixt, from Global News, on her award winning podcast Crime Beat as she takes you through some of Canada’s most high-profile criminal cases. Real People, Real Crimes, Real Journalism. Each episode takes you deep inside cases she has worked to give you detail you didn't hear on the news. Season 3 is available NOW - LISTEN​ Crime Beat is the 2020 winner of the Edward R. Murrow Podcast Award (RTDNA). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here’s a list of words that shouldn’t go together but do…alone together…how many times did you uses that during the coronavirus pandemic?...deafening silence…I know what that means, but when you think about it, the juxtaposition is strange… Definitely maybe…good name for a Britpop album, but an odd combination of words…random order…walking dead…original copy… Here’s another one: pop-punk…you know what I mean by that…but those words should not go together…punk was originally created as an attack pop… Over the decades, pop and punk merged to create a hybrid that’s responsible for selling hundreds of millions of records and concert tickets… How did this happen?...that’s what we’re looking at…this is part two of a history of pop-punk… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before we get to the topic at hand, I’d like to revisit the movie “Forrest Gump,” specifically Forrest’s shrimp boat buddy, Benjamin Buford Blue—but you can just call him Bubba…he knew all the ways one could serve up shrimp… What Bubba could do for shrimp, other people can do for punk…punk rock comes in as many different varieties of shrimp…there’s hardcore punk, ska-punk, cyberpunk, synthpunk, anarcho-punk, cowpunk, gypsy punk, Christian punk, Celtic punk, art punk, garage punk, glam punk, crust punk, horror punk, street punk, melodic punk, afro-punk, skate punk, Chicano punk, folk funk, trall punk… There’s punk blues, punk pathetique, punk metal, riot grrrl, queercore, rapcore, straight edge, emo, and oi… And then we can get into all sorts of subgenres…hardcore punk includes bent edge, deathcore, pornogrind, screamo, powerviolence, positive hardcore, nard core, nintendocore…and that’s about all I know about that… Most of these punk derivatives are pretty niche and none of them have a hope in hell of gro

At some point, you may end up being invited to your high school reunion—and you’re probably going to go because you wanna see what happened to all those people… Where’s the jock that made your life miserable?...the girl or the guy who snubbed you for that date and broke your heart…the shy, nerdy guy who was really smart…who did well?...who got what was coming to them… But—oh, wait: people at the reunion are going to be thinking the same about you…how’s your hair and your waistline and your complexion?...dammit!...what am I gonna wear?...what am I gonna say to these people?...and so the anxiety sets in… But you’ll still end up going…why?...because we’ve all got the “where-are-they-now” gene…it’s only natural to be curious about the whereabouts of people we were close to (or at least in close proximity to) during an important time in our lives… Connecting people this way was one of the first projects for the internet…classmates.com went online way back in 1995…its sole purpose was the find anyone you might

Sometimes, life becomes too much…things get too weird, there’s too much pressure, too many decisions, too many wrong choices….the uncertainty builds—and then you just kinda lose it… We lose the plot, go off the rails, hit the ditch, blow a gasket, and generally freak out…sometimes, these incidents are fueled by drugs, alcohol and mental illness…other times, it’s the body and brain’s way of saying “thanks, but I’ve had enough for now…I’m going to go over here and have me a little breakdown right now”… Creative types can be especially vulnerable to these problems…maybe because they’re wired differently…or they’ve developed some bad, self-destructive habits tolerated or even encouraged by those around them…or because they can live in a bubble, they don’t exactly know “normal” is to the average person… The results can be scary…and if we don’t know the backstory to these breakdowns and freak-outs, it’s very hard to help these people in their time of need…but the more we understand how and why people find themse

There’s something about creative types that make them different than the rest of us…if you’ve ever spent any kind of time with any kind of artist, you’ll what I mean…they’re just different, you know?... That’s not any kind of judgment…it’s just an honest observation…they look at the universe differently, feel things in ways we don’t, and interpret life in interesting ways…that’s what makes them artists—and it’s why they’re so important to the rest of us… Sometimes, though, some of them will lose the plot…they’re so wrapped up in their bubbles that they start behaving…weird—even for them… Maybe it’s a mental health issue…maybe it has to do with drugs or alcohol…maybe they’ve just fallen in with a bad crowd, the kind that encourages bad, self-destructive behaviour… Some are able to rebound, straighten out and otherwise save themselves and those around them from any further grief…other times, well…. These are stories of musicians who lost it… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This show is going to blow the lid off some secrets and mysteries in new rock. Admittedly some you may have already have heard rumours about,  but others....well this may be the first time you are ever hearing about them.      Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the 1990s there was a massive flood of stand-up comedians making the leap to television to star in their own stand-up sitcoms thanks in part to the success of the Cosby Show and Roseanne. Those shows were followed by other massive hits like Seinfeld, Home Improvement, Martin, Ellen and The Drew Carey Show.   All of them featured a previously established stand-up comic who had been scouted from the comedy club circuit.  But there were lots of other shows starring comics that had high expectations but went down in flames like Grace Under Fire starring Bret Butler, All American Girl starring Margaret Cho and anything featuring Andrew Dice Clay. On the next two episodes we are going to take a look back at some of the hits as well as some the failures from that decade.  On part one, we look back at the stories behind Roseanne, Seinfeld, Home Improvement, Martin and Ellen.  Contact:  Twitter: @1990shistory Facebook: @1990shistory Instagram: @that90spodcast Email:  90s@curiouscast.ca Guests: Paul Brown

Everyone talks about being first at something because it’s cool to be the first to do something…but what about being last?... There’s something called “Telesphobia,” which is the fear of being last at something…but sometimes, you just don’t have a choice… The last person killed in World War 1 was George Edwin Ellison, who was shot by a sniper 90 minutes before the Armistice went into effect at 11 am on November 11, 1918… The last time a TV commercial for cigarettes ran on American TV was on December 31, 1970…it was for Virginia Slims, by the way… And the last man on the moon was Eugene Cernan…Apollo 17, December 1972… After reading through all sorts of famous “lasts,” I got to thinking:  what are some famous music lasts?...here’s what i managed to find out… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a show all about fake names…sure we could spend an hour talking about how people like Courtney Love and Elton John and Madonna use fake names on hotel registers…or we could go into how Bono’s real name is “Paul Hewson” and Deadmau5 has “Joel Zimmerman” on his driver’s license and that lorde is really Ella Yelich O’Connor… We could talk about how singers and bands sometimes perform gigs under fake names to throw off the press…the Foo Fighters, The Arcade Fire, Metallica, The Arctic Monkeys, Radiohead, Franz Ferdinand, REM, Kaiser Chiefs, Led Zeppelin, The Clash and hundreds of others have done that… But no, we’re going to kick it up a big notch…we’re only interested in real bands—big bands—who have released albums under fake identities…or, at the very least, have tried to obscure their identities for whatever reason…they’re side projects, yes, but very special ones… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here at the Ongoing History of New Music, we get questions....a LOT of questions. So many that it's often difficult to answer all of them. But we do.  And what we've gathered in this edition of the Podcast are some of the most asked ones we get. So if you've often had these particular questions, here are the answers! But if you still have a question, please send it along and we will get the answer. We Promise.  Send them to Alan@AlanCross.ca     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you've ever wanted to be a musician, chances are you dreamed of going on tour. The romance of the road and everything that comes along with it.  But it's not as easy as you think. Not everyone is U2 and charters their own plane to get from gig to gig. Chances are you're going to be using a tour bus....or more likely....in a van. It is such a grind that kills many a band. There are the hassles, the expense, the accidents, the weirdos, the arguing, the screw ups,  and more. Murphy's law is in full effect: whatever can go wrong...will go wrong. Get in the van. Let's hit the road. You'll see what I mean. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the beginning—and I’m talking about, say, 1955—it was easy to categorize popular music…there was rock, pop, country and r&b…it was nice and simple…pretty much all mainstream music you heard could be dumped into one of these four buckets… But even back then you could get more granular…you could slice certain genres into thinner slices to include big band, Dixieland, Ska and hillbilly…and jazz…and gospel…and Broadway show music…and I guess we can’t leave out classical, can we?... And as rock’n’roll grew, it fragmented and separated and stratified with each passing year…before long, it wasn’t enough to say that you were in a “rock band”…you had to specify what kind of rock band you were… In 2014, a guy named Glenn McDonald created a project called “every noise at once”…he was able to identify 1,264 micro-genres of popular music…and new micro-genres are being invented every day…every hear of blackgaze or deep filthstep or skweee?...they exist…trust me… Some of these genres rise and fall pretty quickly…they

You may have noticed that the most of the biggest rock acts in the world aren’t that young…Green Day?...middle 40s… Dave Grohl?...creeping up on the half-century mark… Trent Reznor?...as we sit here right now, he’s 52…Pearl Jam: early-to-mid 50s… Average age of U2?...upper 50s…Springsteen?...68…Paul McCartney?...75…and The Rolling Stones?…do you have to ask?... I am not ragging on old rockers…this is not about ageism…i just can’t subscribe to that whole “rock is for the young” B.S.…if these acts can continue to do what they do well into their pension years, all the power to them… Part of the reason so many people are still into these groups is because their bodies of work are incredibly strong and still sound great….most of The Beatles music is still brilliant even though much of it is more 50 years ago… The other reason these acts still attract attention is because there hasn’t been much of anyone to replace them…where are all the superstar rock acts of the 21st century?... This isn’t to say that they d

Friday, August 16, 1974, was a hot summer day in New York City…it was 31 degrees, but the humidity made it feel a lot hotter…and if you were down in the Bowery amidst all the concrete, it was hotter still...and it smelled… This part of the city was, to be honest, rather uncivilized…it was a slum…lots of garbage, broken windows, abandoned buildings, drug addicts and homeless people…but there were also businesses and places to hang out—like a dive bar at 315 Bowery at Bleeker called CBGB… Even though it was a Friday night, there was almost no one in the bar…there was the owner, the owner’s dog, two people from a transvestite band from San Francisco called The Cockettes, the manager of another band called television and an artist from the neighhourhood who had moved up from Chihuahua, Mexico, and a scenester named Leggs McNeil …that’s it… And sometime around 9:00, four guys in leather jackets, t-shirts, torn jeans and converse high-tops got up on the tiny stage… “They counted off this song,” he remembers, “a

when you’re the lead singer in a band, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get all the attention…after all, you are the visual and audio focal point for pretty much everything… Yeah, there might be a hot guitarist or someone else flashy in the group, but for the 99% of the time, the spotlight is on you…which is fine if you’re the lead singer… But if you’re not?...what if you’re the schlep on bass or drums?...what if you’re the newest member of the band and you haven’t earned the right to claim any of the glare…maybe you have something to say…or maybe you have something to sing… Chances are you’ll get shouted down, ignored or buried…but not always…i’ve found some very, very good songs where the second voice in the band—or the third or the even the fourth has stepped-up big-time to grab centre stage, even for just one single song…and here’s the thing: you might not even know it… This is a look at some times when the lead singer took a step back and handed the mic to a second voice Learn more about your ad choi

This is the second part of out examination of the Alt-Rock scene and this time we go from mid 80's right up to today. Goth has always had a bad rap so we're going to try to clear everything up with our deep dive.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Goth has always had a bad rap and that's not fair to the music, the fans and the fashion so we're going to try to clear everything up with our deep dive. Don't worry...no one's going to get hurt. We examine the Alt-Rock scene from the early 70's and take it right up to today. This is "Good Goth" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices