Ongoing History Of New Music

It’s hard being in a band…all that time close together, day and night, in cramped vans and crappy dressing rooms…record company issues, personal issues, personnel problems and the general fragile state of the human condition…it’s no wonder so many groups break up...after a while, it’s just too much trouble. But there are exceptions, bands that somehow manage to stay together in the same form forever, no matter what happens… the Radiohead that we know today is really the only Radiohead there’s ever been…U2 hasn’t had a lineup change since 1978… ZZ Top has been the same three guys since 1969… And here’s another one to add to the list: Billy Talent…same four guys since 1993…how have they managed that?...well, if you want the truth, go to the source… This is Billy Talent: in their own words, part 3 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Artists make art because they have it…there’s something in their hearts that forces them to turn what they feel inside into something the rest of us can see and hear and feel ourselves… It supposed to be this pure thing…the pursuit of beauty for beauty’s sake…undistilled human emotion designed to create a reaction, to spread a profound messages, to make the universe a better and wiser and more joyful place… Yeah…those are nice thoughts…but the universe being what it is, things don’t work that way… Artists need to eat…they need to pay the rent…they need tools and supplies…they may need to travel from place to place…and they may need help from others—people that demand payment… In other words, artists need money to survive…they may find that money from donations…maybe they have a patron…but in the modern world, what they really need is a regular income… It used to be that musicians would play gigs and sell their music to the public…if they got it on the radio, then that was revenue stream…then came selling

I’ve done hundreds of interviews with individual artists over the year…it’s relatively easy...all you have to do is get one person in a room, turn on the recording devices and you’re set… When it comes to interviewing a band, you’re lucky to get two members in the same place and the same time…  But getting every member of a band in the same place at the same time for an interview is next to impossible…I’ve only managed to be so lucky a couple of times… U2, Kings of Leon, Foo Fighters, Green Day, Blink-182—and that’s about it… And lemme tell you something: each of these interviews required extraordinary efforts under extraordinary circumstances… Such circumstances miraculously presented themselves with Billy Talent…all four guys around the same table in the same studio…the purpose?...to get them to tell the story of the band in their own words…this is part two of our conversation… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the worst insults you can throw at an artist is to accuse them of “selling out”…the most basic definition is when the pursuit of money compromises, corrupts or otherwise interrupts the pursuit truth and beauty and all the purity and goodness that is supposed to flow from art… But that’s an awfully broad definition which can be applied in a billion different highly subjective ways…at one extreme, some people believe that taking money for any kind of art is perverse…at the other, anything and everything has its price, high or low, depending on the circumstances… And the world has changed…making any kind of art costs money…competition for attention among artists have never been greater…and we’d like to thing that great art inevitably and naturally rises to the top, but it just doesn’t…in a true meritocracy, it would…but we all know that’s not true… And ever since the internet started shaping the way we find and consume music, the value ascribed to it—that is, how much we’re willing to pay for it—has dr

The best way to construct a profile on an artist is to round up everyone together, put them in a studio and get them to tell their story themselves… But that can be difficult, especially with a band…beyond touring and recording schedules, everyone has their own lives and may even live in different cities…putting everyone in the same place could be impossible… It took a while, but we did it…i have all four members of Billy Talent in one place…and they’re here for one purpose: to tell their story in their own words… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the days before Covid, I was always on the road…if it wasn’t a music conference in Singapore, it was an interview in London, the Juno’s in—wherever, or a concert in Los Angeles…this means I have seen more than my share of hotel rooms—everything from five-star luxury spots to sub-one-star establishments that come with a complimentary dead hooker under the bed… This means I’ve developed a certain attitude toward hotels… First thing you do when you get into the room is ditch the bedspread…they are never, ever cleaned…just tear it off, pile it in the corner, and then wash your hands…then try not to imagine what’s happened on that couch… At night, there’s the sound of the air conditioning, the noises coming from the hallway…and what are they doing in the room next door?... Then in the restaurant and the bar and the fitness room, you run into fellow guests…who are they?...what are they doing here?...what’s their story?...occasionally, I’d find out—like the time I ran across a Nobel prize winner who was livin

There are some people who just can’t get along…it could be the result of politics, religion, philophies, property, honour, a personal slight, a perceived insult, or—well, a million things, really… The most famous feud in history might be the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s who fought each other along the border between Kentucky and West Virginia in the late 1800s…it started over a hog…did it belong to Floyd Hatfield or Randolph McCoy?...in the end more than a dozen people were killed on both sides of the feud, largely over a pig… Here’s something a little more relatable…German brothers Adolf and Rudolf Dassler co-founded a shoe company in their mother’s basement…when U.S. sprinter Jesse Ownes used their shoes for the 1936 Berlin Olympics, sales blew up… But the brothers couldn’t deal with the success and kept fighting and fighting and fighting…finally, in 1948, they couldn’t take it anymore and the company split in two…Adolf called his company “Adidas”…Rudolf named his “Puma”…   And this is a good one…R2D2 an

Ever been to a concert and wondered "How do they make all of this work?". "How have I not gone deaf?" or "Why does the dude on stage wearing what looks like a pair of ear-buds?"Well we're here to answer those questions and more as we delve deep into the history of concert sound... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In assessing popular music in the last half of the 20th century, rock music was a massive cultural phenomenon…initially driven by young baby boomers, rock grew bigger and stronger, starting in the middle 60s, eclipsing all other genres…and central to this conquest was the electric guitar… That sound, with all its power and distortion and infinitely diverse tonalities, can still drive music fans into ecstasy, For many, the electric guitar is a symbol of rebellion and liberation…it was a new vehicle for freedom of expression…and it opened the doors to new types of creativity…and it was because of the electric guitar that rock went global… Its history is a complicated one involving musicians, inventors, tinkerers, happy accidents, big multinational companies and lone wolves…some names are well known while others, despite their contributions to the decades-long evolution of instrument, languish in obscurity, known only to guitar geeks and obsessives… And while there have been many occasions where pundits have

For centuries, music was nice and clean…while different instruments gave notes different timbres, the frequencies of those notes was expected to be clear and pure…yes, you could add a little umph by playing fortissimo, but the dogma was “let’s not overdo it”… But sometimes the situation called for overdoing things…banging a piano turns a melody and a beat into some stompin’ boogie-woogie…a raspy, hard-blown saxophone brings energy to a performance… But creating pleasant distortion with either of these  instruments—and we can name a few others—is limited to the abilities of the human body…volume and distortion and all the energy that comes with playing this way is restricted by how hard you can hit or blow into something… The electric guitar has no such limitations…it can be played so that the notes are pristine…or you can summon all demons of hell with volume, distortion, power, and glory and that is cool… The electric guitar is one of humankind’s greatest musical inventions…starting in the 1950s, it revo

There are few instruments more powerful than the electric guitar…when the first primitive models appeared in the 1920s, no one gave them much thought…the electric guitar was brand new, unproven, and completely lacking in any of the kinds of traditions and gravitas enjoyed by the piano, the violin, or any number of brass instruments… Besides, unlike all the other musical instruments in use, these required electricity, a concept that was still quite new…electric household appliances were just starting to catch on…and having a radio was still a novel thing… But over the next 30 years, the electric guitar found its place in music, helped along by technology, the need for volume, changing social conditions, and the ever-evolving musical tastes of the public… By the 1960s, the electric guitar was regarded as one of the most powerful musical inventions of all time…it was the sound behind rock’n’roll and all the social and cultural changes it created…it was the sound of freedom, power, rebellion, joy. heartache, a

The human body is a remarkably good piece of construction…it has its quirks and shortcomings, but for the most part is a pretty cool thing: functional, durable, and to other humans, attractive… But there’s always room for improvements and modifications and decorations…archeologists have found mummified remains that are thousands and thousands of years old that’s sport tattoos… There’s a guy named Otzl that was found in the Swiss Alps when a glacier melted…he’d been there for over 5,000 years—and the dude had 61 tattoos… Egyptian mummies plus pacific islanders, members of ancient African communities, bodies dating to iron age Britain, early Japanese societies, and the Indigenous people of North and South America have all engaged in this kind of body art… Tattoos have also been used to identify prisoners and slaves, to display religious connections, and associations with armies, navies, bikers, and criminal gangs…and for many people tattoos still carry some kind of stigma…only deviants and weirdos got tatto

We’ve all heard the stories about where punk came from…the New York Dolls and a few other bands start playing in a crappy area of New York that attracted musicians, artists, and degenerates with low rent… This leads to the opening of CBGB, a club that becomes the centre of a music scene that gave a home to bands like television, Blondie, The Talking Heads, The Heartbreakers, and, most importantly, The Ramones… In July 1976, The Ramones fly to London and play a show attended by curious kids who then either continue on with their punk plans—that would be The Sex Pistols, The Clash, and a few others—or inspire others to form their own groups…and from there, punk spreads across the world… That’s a nice succinct look at punk’s origin story…what’s missing is Canada’s involvement—and believe me, the great white north had a lot to say about punk in those early days…and I mean, a lot… Toronto was like the third leg of a punk triangle that extended to New York and London…ideas and trends and music was constantly ex

Whether we want to admit it or not, each of us is product of our parents…we are like mom and/or dad…and that may manifest itself in different ways… Maybe one of them was a great cook and that’s led to a life-long love of food…maybe they introduced to travel and now you spend all your extra money on airfare…or maybe one of them had some kind of craft that you gravitated towards…carpenter, knitting, gardening… And chances are if you have musical parents, you’re going to end up musical, too—at least to some extent…it’s again that combination of nature and nurture… Now imagine that your mom or dad is a famous musician…cool people are always dropping in…there are tours and time spent in the studio and parties and industry events…for anyone else, that would be mind-blowing…but for you, it’s just how life is… And because that’s how your life is, you just fall into the lifestyle…you learn to play and write and perform…and because the parents have some connections and relationships, you might have the inside line

With the way the music industry operates, this guys career should have been dead and buried long ago. I mean no offense…but look at this dude. Even when he was young, he looked dorky. Bad glasses and poor posture. This was a guy who was a computer programmer for a cosmetics company. And in the age of Punk when everyone had safety pins stuck to their clothes, and leather jackets….this guy insisted on wearing a sport coat. Yet he’s still here…still making music…and not only does he have the respect and admiration of many generations of fans, he’s collaborated with everyone from Paul McCartney to Burt Baccarat. He’s delved into punk, sting quartets, jazz ensembles, and more…so how does he do it. And what’s the big deal about Elvis Costello? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Although they were around really for just 4 years, The Smiths succeeded in becoming the most influential British indie band of the 1980's. They hastened the deal of tech-pop, and laid the foundation of what was to become Britpop.  But how exactly did that happen and really, what is the big deal about The Smiths?   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Back in the day, they called The Clash "the only band that mattered" and few voices are more important or influential in the history of rock than that of Joe Strummer. Without Joe and The Clash, we wouldn't have a fraction of the bands and musicians that we do today. Put simply;  Joe Strummer is one of the most significant musicians in the history of rock. Full stop. December 22nd, 2021 marks the 19th anniversary of Joe's sudden passing at just 50 years old. To mark the occasion, and honour Joe, we go back into the Ongoing History achieves and present our profile of Joe that first aired in the spring of 2003.  This is our tribute to the legend of Joe Strummer... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is it really almost the end of 2021?...if I’m honest, it’s all been a blur, almost like 2020, with covid on my mind 24/7…it’s just reality… You know how I’ve been spending my time?...I’ve spent almost two years in my office, throwing myself into work…I think i’ve read a record number of books…my iPad tells me that my screen time is up 23%...and I’ve posted somewhere around 2500 stories on my website… Now that the end of the year is approaching and we’ll soon be into the holidays, it’s time for the annual office clean-up… There are post-it notes everywhere with little tidbits of information I’ve found…i’ve bookmarked a ton of sites…there’s a little journal filled with scribblings…books with pages turned down and e-books with passages highlighted… Much of this has already been turned into (or will be turned into) “ongoing history” programs and posts…but there’s also all kinds of fascinating stuff that I couldn’t use…they just didn’t fit in with anything that I’ve done in 2021…it’s orphaned material… But I

Once upon a time, before social media and the internet, all musicians were mysterious…outside of seeing them live, our only connections with them were through their music, the liner notes and album artwork, and stories in music magazines… Yes, there were the occasional tv appearances, but those were quite rare…in fact, it wasn’t really until music videos started to be a thing in early 80s that fans began to grasp what their idols looked like in a major way… And consider this: it wasn’t until MTV and MuchMusic started interviewing musicians that we began to discover what their speaking voices sounded like… Today, though, there are no more secrets…artists are in constant touch with their fanbase through social media…fans are constantly trading news online…camera phones are everywhere…we live in a world of oversharing and tmi… Hell, even kiss—a band that spent its first decade hiding behind makeup as a way of creating myth and legend and essentially invented the concept of the mysterious, unknowable rock sta

I remember being in London in the summer of 2001…I made my usual pilgrimage up to the original Rough Trade records store on Talbot Street, off Portobello Road in Notting Hill… I was a little bummed out with music at the time, so I was hoping for some inspiration…the mainstream was awash in pop music…spice girls, backstreet boys, Britney Spears… And alt-rock had kinda lost its way after grunge burned out…the big acts were searching for direction…there were far too many one-hit wonders…and nu-metal, the biggest thing at the time, was very, very polarizing…you either were really into it or you hated it… It also seemed that this new genre dubbed “electronica” was siphoning off a lot of rock fans…music made the old-school way with guitars, bass, drums, and vocals seemed old-fashioned, out of date, and played out… But that couldn’t be true, could it?...in the past, every time rock was declared dead, someone or something came along and breathed new life into everything… I told this story to Nigel, the guy at th