Ongoing History of New Music

Latest Episodes:

Sonic Coincidences in Alt-Rock Part 1 Mar 22, 2023

Show notes

Let me ask you this...how many times have you heard a song and said "Hey that song sounds just like something I heard last month. That guitar riff is really familiar....don't they realize those chords were used in a song years ago?!?!?!"

This sort of thing happens all the time...in fact it happens more than most people realize.

Sometimes quiet deals are worked out behind the scenes and the public never knows, other times things get ugly....

These are true stories of plagiarism and unfortunate sonic coincidences in the world of Alt-Rock...part 1

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The Weird History of Concert Tickets Part 2 Mar 15, 2023

Show notes

We’ve all been there...tickets for a concert you really, really want to see are set to go on sale at exactly 10am...you’re on the Ticketmaster site as the clock ticks toward the appointed time...

9:59:57...9:59:58...9:59:59...ten o’clock!...show time...

Enter...nothing...refresh refresh refresh the browser...nothing...you try mashing the f5 button a bunch times...no luck....you hit control-r a couple of times...still nothing...but then, one last time and you’re in!...except you’re not...at 10:01 and 17 seconds, the show you so desperately wanted to see is sold out...

What the--...you did everything right...how could so many tickets get sold so fast?...hello, what’s this?...tickets are already for sale on the secondary market?...and the price is double the face value?...what just happen

This is just one ticket-buying scenario...maybe you were able to get in only to discover that tickets were already selling for quadruple the original price—and that’s through the primary seller—in this case, Ticketmaster...

You’re the act’s biggest fan!...you should be able to get tickets to at least one of their shows...and you’ve been shut out in less than 90 seconds...hello?...ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?...

Hold on...back up...there’s a lot to process here and it can get pretty emotional...buying concert tickets can be one of the most frustrating of all retail experiences...and a big part of the problem is that the average person doesn’t understand how it works...

Wait...that sounds condescending, but I don’t mean it to be...getting a ticket to a concert should be simple—but it’s not...the complexities of buying and selling concert tickets today would drive Einstein insane...

Stick around and I will do my best to unravel everything for you and by the time we’re done, I won’t have made it any easier to get a ticket, but maybe you’ll understand why you can’t get one...this is the weird history of concert tickets, part 2...

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The Weird History of Concert Tickets Part 1 Mar 08, 2023

Show notes

Let’s define a “concert ticket”...it is a contract between you, an act, a promoter, and a venue that allows you admission to specific event at a stated time and place...seems simple enough...let’s continue...

A concert ticket can cost money that goes to covering costs and making a profit for those staging the concert...or in some cases, it can be free and is used mainly for tracking attendance...

Fair enough...a concert ticket can be pre-printed on card stock...it can be printed by a machine when you buy it...it can be a bar or QR code on a piece of paper you print out at home...it may have a little hologram thingy on it or some other sort of security device...that ticket may be tied to the credit card used to buy the ticket—or it may not...and when you go through the door, a person may take your ticket, tear your ticket in half, or just scan it...

But maybe you don’t have a physical ticket at all...you have an e-ticket which has been living on your phone for months...you poke through a bunch of screens until you finally find it, holding up everyone in line and thinking to yourself you should have really called it up earlier because you couldn’t remember where you stored it and then get that scanned...

Fine...that’s a concert ticket...but who are the people behind issuing and redeeming all these tickets?...what entities get to determine how much we have to pay?...how come we have to buy so many tickets through Ticketmaster?...and what about these services charges and dynamic pricing and scalpers who somehow get their hands on tickets in second if not before tickets go on sale to the general public?

And here’s a bold statement: everything you know about concert tickets is probably wrong...

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The Early Days of LGBTQ Rock Mar 01, 2023

Show notes

Once upon a time, it was illegal—criminal—to be another other than heterosexual...any hint that you may be something other than straight could get you into all sorts of trouble—and career suicide was the least of your worries...

In 1895, the famous English playwright, Oscar Wilde, was put on trial for homosexual practices...he was found guilty and sentenced to two years in jail...he never recovered from the ordeal and died soon after his release...

In 1959, Liberace, the famous pianist, sued the London Daily Mirror for libel for implying that he was gay...it went to trial and on the stand and under oath, Liberace stated that–this is 1959, remember–he had never indulged in homosexual practices...the judge believed him and he won $24,000...

In 1982, a former male bodyguard sued him for palimony–and this time, Liberace had to pay out $95,000...finally, in 1987, he died of AIDS–and the Daily Mirror came calling, looking for a refund of their $24,000...

And look at Elton John...despite the fact that he married a woman in 1984, the rumours of his homo- and bisexuality helped erode his fan base in the late 70s...he had to hide it for decades, something that took a serious emotional toll...

When you put everything into this kind of context, you can see how far things have come today...if someone comes out, this admission is greeted by most with a shrug...it’s like “okay...cool...whatever”...

And not only that, but sexual orientation is protected by law in much of the world...for example, in late 2004, the French parliament adopted legislation that could get a person one year in jail for insulting homosexuals...this law treats anti-gay and sexist comments in the same way other laws treat racist and anti-Semitic insults...say something homophobic in France and you could end up with 12 months in the clink plus the equivalent of a $75,000 fine...

But it wasn’t always this way, including in the world of new rock, which was supposed to be so progressive, liberal and tolerant...here of some stories of brave people who took a lot of arrows for who they were.

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The Very First Episode of the Ongoing History of New Music Feb 28, 2023

Show notes

I vividly remember sitting down to write the first-ever episode of “The Ongoing History of New Music”...I was in my living room with a blank yellow note pad...and I was terrified...

To be brutally honest, I did not want this gig...but the powers-that-be decreed that this was my new job...if didn’t want to do it, that would have been cool...I was told I’d receive a manila envelope containing a modest severance package...

That wouldn’t work...I’d just gotten married and I’d just bought a house with a 12 ½ per cent mortgage...and I’d done radio all my adult life, so I didn’t really have a lot of skills for any other line of work...

So I told the bosses that “okay, I’ll do it”...what other choice did I have?...

So there I am, sitting looking at this blank yellow note pad this was before the internet and before anyone started writing books on the history of alternative music... ...where to start?...how to organize everything?...and how could I come up with something every single week?...

What’s that quote from the ancient Chinese philosopher, Laozi?... “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”...so I just started scribbling notes...

A few days later, I had a script for the first episode of “The Ongoing History of New Music”...I decided that the best way to begin was to make a pilot, a show that laid out what the program would be...I was a total guess...I had no idea...none...

I figured I’d do the show for a couple of years and then move on...people would get tired of it, it would outlive its usefulness, or I’d just end up getting fired—for real, this time...

But here we are, 30 years later, and I’m still doing “Ongoing History” shows...and as I sit here, it’s February 2023, we’re about 30-ish episodes from Ongoing History show number one thousand...that’ll happen sometime in November...

Things have changed a lot since I wrote and recorded that first episode, things that we’ll get into when we get to show number one thousand...but for now, to mark 30 years since the first episode aired, we’ve pulled the recording from the archive and are making it available for the first time as a Podcast...God, the concept of Podcasts was still years away when we started this...

So just for fun, let’s take a listen to that very first program, broadcast on February 28, 1993...I hope this isn’t too cringey...

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Black History Month 2023 Feb 22, 2023

Show notes

A couple of years back, I did an episode called “The Diversity Show”...it ran in February as part of Black History Month...the goal was to salute the contributions of people of African descent to the world of rock...

It was quite the list...Jimi Hendrix...we had to talk about Jimi, one of the greatest guitarists of all time...then there was Death, a criminally overlooked band from Detroit called Death who were about 20 years ahead of their time...

We talked about Bad Brains, the great hardcore band from DC...we moved to English for discussions about Ska stars The Specials and The English beat...the punk-funk of Fishbone, the metal crunch of both Living Colour and Ice-T’s and BodyCount

And we included Lenny kravitz, Bloc Party, Bakar, Kenny Hoopla, and more...

But the list was incomplete, of course...there was only so much time and there are so many people and events we need to talk about...so let’s spread the recognition around a little more for Black History Month 2023...

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More Vinyl Stories Feb 15, 2023

Show notes

At the dawn of the 21st century, vinyl was dead, dead, dead...we were all going digital and there was no point in keeping this ancient format...vinyl records were dusty, scratchy, and noisy...they took up too much storage space...they warped and got water damaged...

But the biggest knock against vinyl was that it wasn’t portable...MP3s were a brand-new thing back then and the idea of being able to carry around a thousand songs on a device that could fit in your pocket was pretty sexy...

While vinyl never went out of production, fewer and fewer records were manufactured...pressing plants shut down and the machinery either sold off for parts or scrapped entirely...and if you happen to need a new turntable or a cartridge, good luck...try and find one...

Two groups of people stood between vinyl and its extinction: hardcore collectors who never bought into all the digital promises and djs who preferred spinning records instead of mixing CDs...

Vinyl was doomed...but then it wasn’t...starting in 2008, a weird thing happened...like some zombie in one of those old Italian horror movies of the early 80s, the format rose from the dead...

And today, vinyl is doing something it hasn’t done since the early 90s: generating more revenue than cds...the world still buys more compact discs, but because vinyl sells at a premium, it brings in more money than CDs...

Despite supply chain issues, shortages of polyvinyl chloride, back-ups at pressing plants, and higher and higher prices, more people are getting into vinyl every day...that’s why I thought it was time that we explored a few more stories about a format that refuses to go away...

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The Story of TV Theme Songs Feb 08, 2023

Show notes

Like Homer Simpson, I love my TV...without my local, network, cable, on-demand, and streaming shows none of us would have made it through the pandemic...

The downside is that in order to remain distracted and entertainment, I became over-subscribed...mixed with my perpetual fear of missing out, I’ve ended up paying for more cable channels than I need and subscribing to channels I don’t even watch...

I’m just too lazy to go through my credit card statements, find the offending charges, and then go through the hassle of calling customer service and cancelling my subscription...I gotta do that...

But I’ve been a TV junkie since I was a kid...and one of the things that’s always fascinated me are TV theme songs...some are bespoke compositions commissioned specifically for a show...others are formerly standalone songs that licensed for a program...

In both cases, being the writer of a theme song can be extraordinarily lucrative, especially if the show is a hit and goes into syndication...every time the theme you wrote gets played on TV—broadcast or streamed—anywhere in the world, you get paid...every...single...time...

And since having your song played as part of a TV show, you’re constantly advertising its existence to the world...if you’re lucky, it’ll blow up into something even bigger...and although it doesn’t happen much anymore, your label might decide to release your TV theme as a single...and if it becomes a hit that way, wow....

What I’d like to do is look at the history of some of these TV themes, focusing on rock bands who made some very good money—sometimes-insane money—from somehow ending up being associated with television...

This could very well alter the way you listen to TV from now on...

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Connections Feb 01, 2023

Show notes

Back in the late 70s, the BBC debuted a science education show called “Connections”...the host was James Burke, an affable, professorish guy, usually dressed in a beige polyester leisure suit who gave the term “interdisciplinary” a whole new meaning...

His thing was to take disparate developments in science and technology and show how they were actually interconnected in ways that led to our modern world...nothing, he demonstrated, existed in isolation over the long term...

One show connected the invention of the cannon to the first movie project in the late 1800s...there were obviously a lot of steps in between, but Burke was able to draw a very clear line...another demonstrated the few degrees of separating between drinking gin and tonics to astronomers discovering the true size of the universe...

“Connections” remains one of my all-time favourite TV shows...and to be honest, more than a little of this program is inspired by the way James Burke was able to tie things together...

I’ve always wanted to create a proper “connections”-type show, but it’s been hard because so much knowledge and research and analysis and synthesis is required...and if I’m honest, what you’re about to hear has taken years to pull together...I hope I can do things justice...

Here is my attempt to create some connections between rock music and some seemingly unconnected inventions, events, and discoveries from the past...

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The History of Remixes Jan 25, 2023

Show notes

When humans first started making audio recordings of music, they were limited as to how long those recordings could be...

An original Edison cylinder could maybe hold two minutes of music, therefore any songs committed to the format had to be two minutes or shorter—otherwise you’d run out of space...

When Emilee Berliner came along with his flat rotating disc that spun at 78 rpm, capacity increased a little bit...you now had around three minutes for a song before you ran out of space...so everyone who wanted to make audio recordings adapted to the limitations of the technology...

And this, more than anything else, standardized the length of songs in modern popular music to around three minutes, something that persists even today...how long are most songs?...somewhere in the neighbourhood of three minutes...

Another thing: in the old days, there was just one version of a song...you wrote it, you recorded it, it was manufactured, sent to the stores—and that was it...

But in the 1960s, this, too, began to change with the rise of the album...radio stations loved their three minute songs because it meant they could get in more songs per hour...but with the extra space provided by albums, songs grew longer than the standard three minutes...the only way to get a great (but long) song on an album onto am radio (which dominated at the time), you made to make that long song shorter...

This gave birth to the first radio edits...there was the shorter single version and the longer original album version...sometimes there was serious butchery involved, but hey: radio wanted things down to around three minutes...

But why stop there?...couldn’t you have multiple versions of the same song destined for different uses?...why couldn’t, for example, a short song be made longer?...or made more interesting with different mixes and instrumentation and arrangements?...the original song is the same...it’s just that you could add (or subtract) or re-arrange things from the original recording and release that, perhaps expanding the market and reach for the song and the artist...

This gave birth to the remix, an artistic and technological development that took what were once finished single static songs and turned them in to something entirely different....

This is the history of the remix...

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