Ongoing History of New Music

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/CORU6081355392Show contact info: X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCrossWebsite: curiouscast.caEmail: Alan@alancross.ca 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/CORU6081355392Show contact info: X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCrossWebsite: curiouscast.caEmail: Alan@alancross.ca 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