Ongoing History of New Music

Latest Episodes:

Ongoing History introduces Wait, There's More Jun 21, 2019

Show notes

Wait, There’s More is a daily Global News podcast released every afternoon just in time for your commute home. On this episode, protests have erupted in Hong Kong as tens of thousands of people speak out against legislation that would allow the territory’s citizens to be extradited to Mainland China. Demonstrators tried to storm government buildings and police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets.

Host Tamara Khandaker explores Hong Kong’s precarious relationship with China since the end of British governance in 1997 and what the implications of such a major change will mean for the safety of its citizens with the help of Crystal Yeung, a Canadian human rights lawyer living in Hong Kong; Grace Yeung, a Hong Kong resident, who has taken to the streets to protest; and BBC journalist Vincent Ni.

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The Rise and Fall of Britpop Jun 19, 2019

Show notes

We're taking a look back at the glorious days of Britpop. That incredible time in the 90's which lasted about 6 years where it seemed Cool Britannia ruled the airwaves and everyone was having a great time!

London was swinging again and British acts were selling tens of millions of albums the world over. It was fresh, it was fun, and it was cool.

And then it was over...collapsed by the weight of over exposure, boredom, and drugs. Lots and lots of drugs.

Let's take a look back to see how this all happened.

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Franz Ferdinand: In Their Own Words Jun 17, 2019

Show notes

Welcome to another episode in our series of having bands and musicians tell their history in their own words.

This time we go back to our interview in 2009 for the amazing Franz Ferdinand!

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Health Issues of Musicians May 29, 2019

Show notes

The human body is basically a bag of water with a bunch of chemicals mixed in…that’s an over-simplification, of course, but it’s an accurate description of the squishy bits that make up us…

It’s also true that every once in a while, something—or maybe a lot of things—go a little wonky with these squishy bits…yeah, we often hear of some guy up in the Ural Mountains who’s 117 years old who credits his longevity to bacon and unfiltered cigarettes…but that’s the exception…

The rest of us have to constantly be vigilant about our health, eating right, sleeping enough, reducing stress—all that sort of stuff…but not everything is preventable…bad genes…disease…accidents…

These same rules apply to the musicians we follow…they’re human, just like us…and every once in a while, we hear about their health challenges...and quite often, they’re very open about their issues…they want to be honest with their fans—and maybe by bringing attention to their situation, they can encourage awareness or those with similar health problems to seek treatment…

In other cases, we only found out there was a problem after the fact…that knowledge has helped us understand what happened…

So, without betraying any confidences or digging into private health records, here are some musicians who have battled their bodies and their brains, just like us regular folk…

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Catching Up With Twenty One Pilots May 22, 2019

Show notes

Not all bands hit it out of the park right away…they need a few albums and a couple of long tours before things start to fall into place…

Take the Red Hot Chili Peppers, for example…their career really didn’t start to blossom until their fourth album…same thing with Muse—at least in North America…they might have been playing arenas in Europe…but when it came to their fourth album, they were still playing clubs on this side of the Atlantic…

Same thing with R.E.M...they had a strong cult following through four records before they were able to cross over into mainstream consciousness…

And for The Black Keys?...it took until albums number six for them to have their big breakthrough…

These success stories underscore the need for patience and foresight on behalf of record labels, managers, and everyone else associated with the welfare of a particular artist…if you honestly see potential, then you gotta play the long game, one that may stretch out over years…

And then you gotta look at things from the artist’s perspective…is the band prepared to live through some lean and dark times on their way to some kind of success?...

This brings me to Twenty One Pilots…they blew up with the “Blurryface” album in 2015…but before that were six years of really hard slogging when almost no one knew who they were…let’s get caught up on that part of their story, shall we?...

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Rise and Fall of the CD May 15, 2019

Show notes

On the afternoon of October 1, 1982, Sony introduced a new home stereo gizmo… it was the world’s first compact disc player… they called it the CDP-101…

Weird name, but if you take it apart, it makes sense…”CDP” stands for “compact disc player…and “101” is binary notation for the number 5…that’s because the head of the audio division considered this first model to be in the middle of Sony’s future lineup of cd players…so “5” on a scale of one to ten, I guess…

Sony had been working on compact disc technology with a Dutch company called Philips for a number of years, which released their own machine, the cd100, about a month later…

Compact disc technology was rolled out worldwide in march 1983…and for the next seventeen years, the recorded music industry experienced a boom unlike it had ever seen before…music fans were convinced to buy all their favourite albums again…and as the popularity of vinyl and cassettes waned, the cd became the currency of the realm…

And lo, it was good…insane amounts of money were made year after year after year…

But nothing lasts forever and in about 2000, the bloom started to come off the cd rose…and now, cd sales are in a total free-fall as streaming becomes the way most people access music…

The compact disc isn’t dead yet, but it’s never going to be the juggernaut it once was…what happened?...and how?...it’s actually a fascinating story…

This is the rise and fall of the CD…

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Musical Offspring May 08, 2019

Show notes

It runs in the family…like father, like son (or mother like daughter…or some variation of that)…the apple never falls far from the tree…

All these sayings have something to do with some sort of hereditary characteristics or learned abilities passed down from parent to child…

I suppose if you grow up in a creative household, something is gonna run off, whether it be something in your genes or just because of what goes on around you as you’re growing up…

Take the case of Patrick Schwarzenegger, son of Arnold…not only has he done some acting, but he’s got a clothing company called #project360 that donates a chunk of profits to charity…

Duncan Jones is the son of David Bowie…he’s a really good film director…Sasha Spielberg is the daughter of Stephen and Kate Capshaw…she’s become quite the screenwriter…Ben Stiller is the son of Jerry Stiller…most people know Jerry as George’s father on “Seinfeld”…

What about music?...Johnny Cash and daughter Roseanne…Billy Ray, dad of Miley Cyrus…Norah Jones is the daughter of Ravi Shankar….Jason Bonham is the son of Zep drummer John…he’s not only been in a bunch of bands of his own, but he’s sat in for his dad on drums a couple of times when Jimmy Page and Robert Plant needed someone to keep time…

Okay, this is fun…how many other parent-sibling combinations can we name—if we just focus on the world of alt-rock…sounds like it’s time to make a list…

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Music Industry Glossary: Part 2 May 01, 2019

Show notes

Every industry has its own language…think about what it’s like to be a doctor and all the terms and phrases you must learn if you’re going to communicate with your patients and other medical professionals…what’s the difference between and otolanryingolist and a nephrologist?...iatrogenic and idiopathic?...hypotension and hypertension?...

What if you’re working in the world of finance?…you need to know about things like “shorts” and “yield curves” and my favourite, “ebidta”—earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization…

Or maybe you’re a coder…think of all the jargon you use when you’re working on a project…

I have a list of coder slang in front of me…I’m told these are real terms used in that world… “rubber ducking is a discussion with other engineers to solve a problem…a “jimmy” is a new and clueless new member of the team…and a “hydra” is a bug that can’t be fixed because every time you try something, two or more new bugs pop up…

So you see what I’m saying about jargon and a language created by the people who work in a certain area…

This applies to the music industry…and if you’re not familiar with the terms that are always thrown about, you might excluded, out of the loop, or a little dumb…

I’ll say it again: that’s wrong…and you shouldn’t be afraid to ask what some of these terms mean…that’s brings us to part two of our music industry glossary…

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Legendary Gigs Apr 29, 2019

Show notes

Maybe it was the first time you saw your favourite musical. Maybe they played a set list that you thought was perfection. Maybe you were front and centre and the singer crowd surfed right over your head!

So sure...an absolutely legendary gig!

But what about those gigs that redefined alt-rock? Those concerts or shows that stand out as legendary for what came after them? The bands they inspired or the lasting legacy of that show on the audience?

Well we're going take a look at 8 of them and try to explain why they are so legendary in the history of alt-rock

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Music Industry Glossary: Part 1 Apr 23, 2019

Show notes

I’m really bad with jargon…I hate it…jargon is by its very nature exclusive…if you don’t know the language, don’t know the codes, don’t know the usage rules, then you’re locked out of the discussion…

I remember one financial guy who wanted to talk to me about a retirement savings plan…and his schpiel went something like this:

“When it comes to diversification of your asset classes, consider taking out some warrants on pink sheet stocks on the vix, backing them up with shorts on fang stocks for a few months before rebalancing your portfolio through dollar-cost averaging”…I have no idea what I just said…

Now let’s switch to music…if you do any exploring of how the music business works, you inevitably run into words that seem important, but you don’t know what they mean…you could ask, but then it might show that you’re, err, lacking in knowledge…

“Newbie!...ignoramus!...rookie!”…no one wants that, so you just keep it to yourself…no one wants to be made fun of…and if someone does deign to explain things to you, there’s always the risk that they’ll be condescending…so you say to yourself “I’ll figure it out…eventually…I hope”…

But that’s not right…music should be for everyone…if you’re interested in how things work with the recorded music industry, your curiosity should be rewarded…and that’s what we’re going to do right now…this is an audio glossary of music industry terms…and once we’re done, you’ll be able to converse with the best of them…

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