Ongoing History of New Music

Latest Episodes:

Ongoing History Introduces you to: "History of the 90's" Sep 04, 2020

Show notes

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 Brownfield, magazine writer, former TV critic at LA Times

Twitter: @paulbrownfield

Greg David, TV critic and partner at www.TV-Eh.com

Twitter: @greg_david

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The Ongoing History Book of Lasts Sep 02, 2020

Show notes

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…

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If That Is Your REAL Name Aug 26, 2020

Show notes

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…

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Your questions answered Aug 19, 2020

Show notes

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

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Get in the Van Aug 12, 2020

Show notes

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.

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The History of Power Pop Aug 06, 2020

Show notes

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’re “of the moment” and soon sound completely outdates…others, though, have staying power…they can be with us for decades…why?...because they just work, that’s all…

And one genre that’s been working very well for over half a century is called “power pop”…this is its story…

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Trying to be a Superstar in the 21st Century Jul 29, 2020

Show notes

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 don’t exist because they do—but the stars seem to have gotten, well, smaller—not to mention fewer and further between…

Wait…perhaps i should clarify what I mean by “superstar”…I’m talking about an act that sells music by the millions and millions of units…I’m talking about concerts by acts for which tens of thousands of people will crawl over broken glass to get tickets…

I’m talking about acts who manage to great a deep catalogue of hits released over a period of years…and I’m talking about acts where there’s consensus by millions of people that they are great and worthy of everyone’s love and devotion…

But thanks to changes within the music industry—and because we music fans are now consuming music differently—everything has been turned upside down…we need to look at things this way: why is so much harder to be a superstar rock act in the 21st century…

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Good Goth: Part 2 Jul 15, 2020

Show notes

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.

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Fashion Jul 03, 2020

Show notes

Today we go back into the Ongoing History archives to talk about Fashion.

This is a request for Amy in Cambridge who asked "have you ever done a show that talks about how fashion was influenced by and through Alt Rock?"
Why yes we have and here it is!

From Mods, to Grunge, Goth, Punk and a whole lot more.

Enjoy and thanks for listening!

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10 Things About Muse Jun 26, 2020

Show notes

There are some bands that you can take at face value, what you see is what you get.

Then there are others which have backstories that go on for ever and ever.

Pearl Jam is one U2 Green Day. Nirvana and also Muse.

Muse is an interesting case because we here in North America, we're a little slow to catch on to what they were doing.

They'd already been massive stars in the U.K., Europe and Japan before they hit North America. This sort of thing doesn't happen very often. It's like we suddenly and collectively discovered a band that was already in full flight, a deep library filled with road tested and chart tested songs.

A solid live show and some very impressive musicianship. It was like we walk into a party that was already in Top Gear. North America has now embraced music every album and tours a big event.

But then there's still that back story. We're still sorting through it, even though you may be a fan. How much about Muse? Do you really know? Let's find out.

I call this show 10 Things about Muse.

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