Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry

Latest Episodes:

The Truth About the 27 Club | 28 Nov 12, 2024

The number “27” occupies an odd place in rock history…it’s the age when rock stars die—or so the story goes…and, if i’m honest, it does come up quite a bit…there are books on the subject, documentaries, and more.

The age of “27” has an eerie hold over popular culture…even casual music fans think that this is when so many rock stars have died…given the ubiquity of the concept of “the 27 club” has, someone might guess that we’re talking dozens and dozens of deaths…just look how deeply “the 27 club” is embedded into rock lore…it’s morbid stuff, but who doesn’t like stories that flirt with death?.

Here’s the question: is this mythology justified? ...what evidence exists for it?... And if so, what’s so special and common about rock starts dying at the age of 27?... We should look into this.

I’m Alan Cross and this is episode 28 of “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry…it’s time to investigate the truth of “The 27 Club”.

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Introducing... Haunted Canada Nov 01, 2024

When Nadine Bailey was 7 years old she woke up terrified of dark figures looming at the end of her bed and an eerie presence all around her. From then on every night was the same, she was visited by phantom-like shadows and no matter where she went, the ghostly encounters followed her. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits and the unexplained have consumed her entire life and for the past 20 years she's been an award-winning guide with Edmonton Ghost Tours Along the way she has taken people into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. On Haunted Canada, Nadine journeys through terrifying and bone chilling stories of the unexplained. Join her if you dare.

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The Station Nightclub | 27 Oct 29, 2024

When you go to a big, loud rock show, you want a spectacle…lights, lasers, special effects, and, if all goes well, lots of pyro…flames, explosions, smoke bombs—they all add to the theatricality of it all.

But if you’re going to blow stuff up and have open flames onstage, you gotta be careful…not only do you have to abide by health and safety regulations, local laws, and local building codes, you have to be very aware of the venue itself.

Can it handle your pyro?... If it can’t—or if you don’t police people who insist of lighting up their own munitions—the results can be deadly…and so far in the 21st century, there have been too many of these incidents.

This is the story of one particular night in west Warwick, Rhode Island…it should have been a typical night of metal at a nondescript 500-person venue…instead, it was one of the worst building fires in American history.

I’m Alan Cross and this is “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music History”…and this is the scary story of the station nightclub fire…

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The Randy Rhoads-Travis Barker Plane Crashes | 26 Oct 15, 2024

What do Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens, patsy cline, Jim Croce, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ricky Nelson, and Stevie Ray Vaughn have in common? ...they all died when the private aircraft in which they were flying crashed.

Holly, the Big Bopper, and Valens were on a single-engine six-seater Beechcraft bonanza when it went down in bad weather in an Iowa cornfield in February 1959…Cline and two other musicians died in March 1963 when their six-seater piper Comanche…bad weather was to blame there, too.

Jim Croce was onboard an 11-seater Beechcraft twin-engine when it hit a tree on takeoff from and airport in Louisiana…fog and pilot error.

In October 1977, a chartered Convair CV-240 carrying members of Lynyrd Skynyrd and their crew somehow ran out of gas and crashed into a Mississippi swamp…i tell that story in episode 1 of this podcast.

On December 3, 1985, Ricky Nelson was on an old DC-3 when an heater on the plane caught fire and crash-landed in a Texas cow pasture.

And Stevie Ray Vaughn was in a helicopter leaving a Wisconsin music festival on August 27, 1990…it ended up all over the side of a ski hill…it was foggy and while the pilot was certified to fly a fixed-wing aircraft under such conditions, he wasn’t licensed to fly a helicopter.

There are many more examples, but I think I’ve made my point.

On this episode, I want take a close look at two more private plane crashes that are still widely discussed…there’s the accident that nearly killed blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and killed several other people…and the other crazy story of the aircraft accident that killed Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Randy Rhoads.

I’m Alan Cross and this is episode 26 of “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry”.

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Lou Pearlman and the Boy Band Ponzi Scam | 25 Oct 01, 2024

The 1920s were a time when people were after easy money…people flocked to the stock market, buying up shares in small companies with borrowed money…and for a while, returns were good.

But this go-go atmosphere also attracted swindlers and con artists…Carlo was one of them…he arrived in the U.S. From Italy in 1903 with $2.50 in his pocket…he’d boarded the ship with more, but Carlo had lost most of it gambling.

He eventually made his way to Montreal where, as a bank teller, he made connections with many new Italian immigrants…the bank had been paying very high interest…these interest payments were covered by the profits from real estate investments…except that they weren’t.

All payments were funded through new deposits from new customers…when the flow of new customers stopped, the interest payments dried up, clients demanded their money, and the bank failed…the owner ran off to Mexico with whatever money was left.

But Carlo was intrigued…by 1920, he was in New York running a company that promised to double investors’ money in 90 days…and if you were a ground-floor investor, that’s exactly what happened…and you were paid promptly.

By mid-1920, Carlo’s company made millions…investors clamored give him money, handing over their life savings and mortgaging their houses…but then several people got suspicious…how could Carlo keep offering such amazing returns?

He couldn’t…the profits could only keep coming if there were new investors…by July 1920, it all started to collapse…the debts were huge…six banks involved in Carlo’s plot failed…at least $20 million—more than $300 million in today’s money—just disappeared.

When he went to prison, Carlo was booked under his assumed name: Charles Ponzi…this kind of fraud is now known as a “Ponzi scheme”.

The world is full of scam artists, many of whom think that they can avoid the mistakes of Charles Ponzi…but the math and the finances never work…Ponzi schemes always fail.

They’ve been tried with stocks, currency trading, beauty products from south Africa, the planting of teak trees in India, church donations, fake loans—even (believe it or not), ant farming in China…and of course, there was Bernie Madoff’s investment club that fleeced people of at least $65 billion.

There’s also one Ponzi scheme that involved a couple of groups that legitimately sold tens of millions of CDs…but behind it all was a financial scam.

This is “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry” …and this is the wild story of the Lou Pearlman and the great boy band Ponzi scheme.

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Concert Terrorism: The Bataclan massacre and the Manchester Arena bombing | 24 Sep 17, 2024

You would think that going to a concert would be a safe thing for everyone…first, you have thousands of like-minded people looking to have a good time…no one sets out to ruin the evening for everyone else…you paid good money for your tickets and you’ve waited a long time for this night to come.

Second, there’s security everywhere…the last thing an artist, a promoter, or a venue wants is there to be some kind of trouble where someone gets hurt—or worse.

For 99.999% of all concerts, things run smoothly…yeah, someone might get a little drunk or stoned and cause trouble…maybe a fight breaks out because someone got pushed…but generally, these common issues are dealt with quickly and without any serious repercussions.

In other words, concerts (for the most part) are safe spaces…except when they’re not…concerts easy pickings for anyone who wants to cause carnage…they are mass gatherings—and such concentrations of unsuspecting people are easy soft targets for people determined to cause injury and death.

If you look at things on a global scale, concerts are more often the target of terrorism than you may realize… the global terrorism database did a study of attacks on concerts and festivals going back to 1970…they found 146 examples.

Most targets were religious festivals with 54…but in second place were concerts with 29…the most common type of attack was bombing followed by assaults, which included firearms…most victims were on-site when it happened.

Between 1970 and 2019, 244 people were killed at concerts and festivals and 1,656 were injured…those numbers have gone up substantially since that study concluded…they do not, for example, include the deaths and casualties in the Hamas attack on the Supernova Festival in Israel on October 7, 2023…at least 346 people died that day.

And if it seems that there have been more terrorist attacks on concerts and festivals, you’re not imagining things…there was a spike starting in 2015 that continued until the COVID lockdown in 2020.

I have details on two terrorist attacks that happened during that period…the first was on a seemingly normal Friday night in Paris…the other was late on a Monday evening when everyone was going home.

I’m speaking of the Bataclan massacre and the Manchester Arena bombing…this is episode 24 of “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry”…and boy, have I got some stories for you.

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Beware the Help: People Who Betrayed Rock Stars | 23 Sep 03, 2024

When you’re a rock star, life can be very busy…there are songs to write, rehearsals to attend, albums to record, promotional appearances to make, interviews to be conducted, and tours to organize and execute…there’s often not a lot of free time.

Maybe you live in a large house or an estate… you might have multiple pied-de-terres around the planet: a home base, a vacation spot or two, and some condos in New York, or London, or Paris.

As a rock star, you’re often away your home (or homes) for long stretches of time…someone has to look after those properties, whether you’re there or not.

Maybe you’ve been a musician, an artist for such a long time you’ve never had to worry about the things that take up a civilian’s day…do your laundry, walk your dogs, go grocery shopping, take care of the lawn, and all that regular daily stuff.

And, of course, you need someone to make sure all the bills get paid…someone has to chase down all outstanding invoices…and because there’s so much money involved in your career coming from multiple streams, you need someone to manage your cash, your bank accounts, and your investments…that means lawyers and accountants and financial advisors.

Just so you can be you, a rock star needs an army of employees and contractors so that everything that needs to be done, gets done…you’re far too busy and the business is far too complex for you to handle that part of life on your own.

And finding the right people is essential…you need to trust these people to deal with the most important aspects of your career, your family, your life, your possessions, and you’re financial security.

But as with all things human, there are those who can’t be trusted…they see all these nice things, maybe have access to cash and assets—and they just can’t help themselves…fingers get sticky…and you don’t know that until it’s way too late.

I’m Alan Cross and this is episode 23 of “Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry”…this time, it’s a warning to beware the help…these are people trusted by rock stars but instead ended up ripping them off…and boy, do I have some cautionary tales for you.

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The Strange Ballad of Doc McGhee | 22 Aug 20, 2024

On August 6, 1989, a chartered 757 nicknamed “The Magic Bus” took off bound for the USSR…on board were Motley Crue, Bon Jovi, The Scorpions, Skid Row, Ozzy Osbourne, Cinderella, and a few others…

It was the dying days of the soviet union…but other than the communist hardliners, few people were sad about that…Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the USSR, had ushered in the era of glasnost and perestroika…reforms were being enacted and few freedoms were creeping into soviet society…

This trip was part of that…a plane full of western rockers was headed to play a two-day festival in Moscow with attendance expected to top 200,000 people…it was the “Moscow Music Peace Festival”… it was hoped that the event would promote greater understanding between the west and the east during this time of great change at the end of the cold war…

It was also set to raise money in conjunction with the “Make a Difference Foundation,” an organization dedicated to helping local Russian people who were addicted to drugs and alcohol…a lot of the money would go to messaging and rehab treatments…

Wait—what?... Motley Crue, Ozzy Osbourne, and all these other acts were part of a highly sensitive, properly diplomatic, international anti-drugs-and-alcohol project inside the soviet union?...

Oh, yes…and on the plane, Ozzy was drunk the whole time…his guitarist, Zakk Wylde, was tripping on LSD…you had to be careful where you stepped because there were syringes on the floor…at the back of the cabin, people rotated in and out of informal jam sessions fueled by booze and drugs…

Now you’re probably wondering who came up with this idea and how it ever actually happened?...well, that’s a bit complicated…it involved the CIA, Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, and 640 tons of marijuana smuggled into North Carolina—and the teenage mutant ninja turtles…and at the centre of all of it was a man named Doc McGhee—who just happened to be the manager of most of the bands on the plane…

This is episode 22 of “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry”…it’s how a drug-smuggling band manager helped end the Cold War…have I got a story for you.

Show contact info:

X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross

Website: curiouscast.ca

Email: Alan@alancross.ca

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The Great American Payola $candal Part 2 | 21 Aug 06, 2024

In 1960, after months of testimony and investigation, it was made illegal for anyone to bribe a radio station or any of its employees to play a record…payola was forbidden under punishment of jail time and a fine of up to $10,000…

This, it was hoped, would keep the marketplace even and fair and no one—not a label, an artist, or anyone promoting that artist—would be able to jump the queue to get a record played on the radio…only songs with true merit would make it to the public…no more pay-for-play!...

Yeah, nice try…

If one thing was learned from the great American payola scandal, it was that radio airplay was essential to making money from a record…and if promoters could no longer walk into a radio station with a bag of cash, a case of booze, some drugs, a couple of hookers, or the promise of gifts (such as expensive watches), then they needed to get creative…

There had to be less obvious ways of tipping the scales in their favour…and there were…

After those initial hearings and the laws passed in their wake, payola never went away…instead, it went underground, toughened up, and became even more sleazy…

As the music industry got bigger and became more corporatized through the 1960s and 70s, the competition got more intense…the amount of money to be made from music involved got exponentially larger…and it got a lot rougher.

Show contact info:

X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross

Website: curiouscast.ca

Email: Alan@alancross.ca

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The Great American Payola $candal Part 1 | 20 Jul 23, 2024

In a fair and just universe, we would live in a meritocracy…the best and most talented would naturally rise to the top and be properly recognized and compensated for their contributions to humanity…yeah, nice idea, but…

We’d like to think that music operates this way…the best and the brightest naturally have their songs heard and become popular because, well, they’re good…these artists have hit records and are deservedly rewarded by the world with the fruits of their God-given natural abilities…again, lovely idea, but hopelessly naïve…

The music business can be an ugly place…as Hunter S. Thompson allegedly once said, “The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs”…(I should also add that the quote ends with “there’s also a negative side”—but I think he made his point)…

It’s a viciously competitive game…and the truth is that sheer talent is not enough to make it big…every potential hit song needs a powerful distribution and marketing system behind it, someone who will work the song by elbowing other artists out of the way…

The goal is to get the song heard by any means necessary…once that is achieved, it’s push, push, push to make the song ubiquitous…the more people that are exposed to it, the greater the likelihood of a record being bought or a song being streamed…that’s when the money starts rolling in…

But it doesn’t end there…once a song is an actual hit, there are ancillary opportunities for revenue…soundtracks…placement in TV shows…licensing for commercials…covers by other artists…the amount of money that can be made is staggering—and everyone along the way gets a taste…

But none of that is possible unless the song is a hit...how can that happen with a perishable commodity in an environment where the end consumer—the music fan—is so fickle and unpredictable...how do you get millions of strangers to buy into a new piece of art?...

The answer: you gotta grease the wheels, create some incentives, and make offers that people just can't refuse…this is where we enter the murky and illegal world of payola…

I’m Alan Cross and this is “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry”… when it comes to payola, boy, do I have some stories for you.

Show contact info:

X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross

Website: curiouscast.ca

Email: Alan@alancross.ca

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Introducing... Dark Poutine | The Quakers and The Killers: The Murder of Peter Lazier Jul 16, 2024

Episode 294: On the evening of December 21, 1883, near Bloomfield, Ontario, visitor Peter Lazier was murdered by two intruders at the farmhouse of Quakers Gilbert and Margaret Jones. The community, deeply affected, quickly organized a search. They traced footprints in the snow, leading to Joseph Thomset and the Lowder family's homes near West Lake. By the next day, Joseph Thomset and brothers David and George Lowder were arrested and charged with murder.

The legal process moved rapidly. The coroner's inquest began the next day, followed by formal proceedings within a week. The trial, held at the Prince Edward County Courthouse in Picton just five months later, suggested the motive was robbery, aimed at stealing the $555 Gilbert Jones earned from selling hops. George Lowder and Joseph Thomset were found guilty of murder and hanged in June of 1884. Many felt justice was served, but others believed the law got it wrong, acting hastily without sufficient evidence.

Sources:

Prince Edward County

The Canadian Encyclopedia | Quakers

The Lazier Murder: Prince Edward County, 1884 — Robert J. Sharpe

The Kingston Whig-Standard 24 Dec 1883, page 2

Ottawa Daily Citizen 24 Dec 1883, page 1

Manitoba Weekly Free Press 15 May 1884, page 2

The Lazier murder trial of 1884 – did they get the right men?

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The Mysterious Death of Brian Jones | 19 Jul 09, 2024

In 1969, the Rolling Stones were about to enter their imperial phase, a time in their career where everything they did seemed to go right…they were on their way to being the biggest rock band in the world…

In December 1968, they released “Beggar’s Banquet,” their biggest-selling album so far…work had started on “Let It Bleed,” another record that would become a classic…that would eventually be followed by “Sticky Fingers” in 1971, “exile on main street” in 1972, and half a dozen more albums that would cement their place in rock history…

But let’s back up to 1969…things were not good within the band…in fact, they were terrible…hard drugs had been seeping into the group and founder Brian Jones was a mess…

Not only was he unable to contribute to the group in any meaningful musical way, but his mood swings made him impossible to deal with…sometimes he wouldn’t show up to rehearsals—and when he did, he was useless…

He neglected to look after the band’s communal car and it was towed away…jones crashed his motorcycle into a shop window and spent time in the hospital…and his drug convictions made it impossible for him to get a visa to tour the U.S…

The Stones desperately needed to tour because some insanely large tax bills were due…they needed the month…something had to give…

On June 8, 1969, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards told Brian Jones that he was fired from the band he created…he was no longer a rolling stone…

Less than a month later, he was dead…was it a drug-related Rock’N’Roll misadventure?...did he accidentally drown in his swimming pool?...or was it something more evil…

Ever since the news broke on July 3, 1969, that Brian Jones had died, there have been questions…it’s a very curious case—and some believe (including his family) that he may have been murdered…I’m Alan Cross and this is “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry,” episode 19…the mysterious death of Brian Jones…

Show contact info:

X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross

Website: curiouscast.ca

Email: Alan@alancross.ca

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Unscrupulous Managers | 18 Jun 26, 2024

If you’re an artist and things are working out well, there will come a time when you need a manager…you need someone to take care of the business end of things while you focus on the music…that’s when you need a manager…

A manager does everything from booking gigs to devising career strategies… which includes promotion and marketing, networking, and conducting any negotiations on your behalf…and the manager is in charge of financial management…hold that thought…

A manager is incentivized by your success…the usual fee is 15% of whatever you make…obviously, the more you make, the more the manager makes and everyone is happy, right?...

The entire relationship is based on trust…you, as the artist, must believe that your manager always has your best interests in mind…and you must believe that your manager will never take advantage of you or rip you off…again, you trust your manager with your money…

In the vast majority of artist-manager relationships, things are professional and legal…the best managers will take a bullet for their clients…some are even legendary for their skills, dedication, and loyalty to their artists…

That includes Peter Grant, who did whatever he needed to do to protect Led Zeppelin and to extract maximum profit from record deals and concert tours…

It includes Paul McGuinness, a veteran who took a very young U2 under his wing in 1978 and built them into the biggest band in the world…

And then there’s Peter Mensch and Cliff Bernstein who have looked after Metallica, AC/DC, Smashing Pumpkins, the Chili Peppers, Muse, Def Leppard, Snow Patrol, and Cage the Elephant, among others…

But it’s not always sunshine, chocolate, and unicorns…there are bad managers, too…and I’m not talking about general incompetence…I’m talking about people who steal, embezzle, and extort from the very people they’re supposed to protect and nurture…

This is “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry,” episode 18…these are three of the worst, most unscrupulous, and most dishonest managers in rock…have I got some stories for you.

Show contact info:

X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross

Website: curiouscast.ca

Email: Alan@alancross.ca

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Introducing... Deadman's Curse Season 2 Jun 20, 2024

In 1931, a larger than life prospector, in search of Slumach’s legendary lost gold mine goes missing in the wilderness of British Columbia.

In this episode, we retrace the epic search and rescue efforts that went into looking for the missing prospector as well potential clues left behind at his campsite, that point to an even bigger mystery of what happened to Volcanic Brown?

Host:

Kru Williams

Guest:

Adam Palmer

Facebook - @HISTORYCanada

Instagram - @deadmanscurse

Instagram - @Historyca

Instagram - @kru_williams

Twitter - @HistoryTVCanada

Curiouscast website: https://curiouscast.ca/

Great Pacific Media Website: https://greatpacifictv.com/

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Phil Spector and the death of Lana Clarkson | 17 Jun 11, 2024

Phil Spector was one of the most successful record producers and songwriters of the 1960s and 70s…he was a boy genius, a millionaire many times over by the time he was 21…

He was the first to use the recording studio as an instrument…he called his recording style “wall of sound,” music that was densely layered and jumped out of am radio speakers like nothing else…

His favourite collection of studio musicians—his house band—became known as “the wrecking crew” and is considered to be the best the music business has ever known…Spector was responsible for hit records for girl groups like The Crystals and The Ronnettes, creating some of the most iconic pop songs of the era…

He produced other massive records for the Righteous Brothers and Ike & Tina Turner…later, he finished up the “Let It Be” album for The Beatles, produced “Imagine” for John Lennon, and a couple of projects for George Harrison… towards the end of the 70s, he guided The Ramones through their “End of the Century” album…

Overall, he was behind had 18 top ten singles—one of the very few producers who had number one records in the 60s, 70s, and 80s…

Spector was an early inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame…a member of the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame…nominee and winner of Grammy Awards…characters in movies have been based on him…

So how did someone so successful and so respected end up convicted for the murder of a B-movie actress?...

Show contact info:

X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross

Website: curiouscast.ca

Email: Alan@alancross.ca

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The Radiohead Stage Collapse | 16 May 28, 2024

The very last thing an artist or a promoter or owner of a venue wants is for someone to get hurt—or worse--at a concert…but it does happen…

There are always stories about bad behaviour or unexpected crowd dynamics… Altamont in 1969, The Who crowd crush in 1979, Woodstock 99, the nine dead during Pearl Jam’s set at the Roskilde Festival in 2000, the deaths at the Astroworld Festival in 2021, and the Brixton Academy crowd crush in 2023 all come to mind…

Those were security failures and problems with crowd control…but occasionally, there’s a different type of disaster, the kind that happens suddenly and without warning…

When you go to a show, you expect that the building and everything in it will be safe, that all has been constructed to proper standards, and won’t present any kind of danger to anyone at the gig…

The last thing you think about is the stage coming down on top of the performers, the crew, and the crowd…

Saturday, June 12, 2012, at Downsview Park in Toronto was a clear, calm summer day. But just minutes before the grounds were to open for fans, thousands of pounds of equipment and scaffolding suddenly came crashing down…one person died and three people were injured…

What happened?...and why did it take so long for justice to be served?...and while we’re at it, was justice served? I'm Alan Cross and this is “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem the Music Industry, episode 16”…the Radiohead stage collapse…have I got a story for you…

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Rock and Roll Predators | 15 May 14, 2024

There are monsters who walk among us, people who prey on the young and vulnerable…and they have always been out there and in all walks of life…

John Wayne Gacy hired himself out as a clown for parties…it was later discovered that he raped, tortured, and murdered at least 33 boys and young men…26 bodies were found in the crawl space under his home near Chicago…

Robert Anderson was the sports physician at the University of Michigan…he was accused of raping over a thousand men and women during routine medical exams…

There are plenty of celebrities who are convicted sexual offenders…director Roman Polanski can’t come back to the u.s. because he’ll be arrested on rape charges over an encounter with a 13-year-old-girl back in the 70s…

Jared Fogel, the subway guy…he was sentenced to 15 years in jail after being convicted of child porn and sex acts with minors…R. Kelly is in jail for 30 years on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering, and child sexual abuse…

Woody Allen, Mike Tyson, Bill Cosby, Tupac, Michael Jackson—they’ve all been implicated and, in some cases, charged and convicted…and then there’s Jimmy Savile, the British DJ and media personality who, under the veneer of being philanthropic, may have been one of the most prolific predatory sex offenders in British history…

There’s more, too…this is episode 15 of “Uncharted: crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry”…and I have three stories of evil predators from the world of rock…

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The Charles Manson Music Nightmare | 14 Apr 30, 2024

The Manson family murders are among the most famous crimes in American history…their actions have been documented over and over and over…this program will not be a recitation of what happened…instead, we’re going to look specifically at how music figures into this story, before, during, and after these horrific events…music had a much bigger part in the murders than most people realize…

This is a story that involves The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Neil Young, The Mamas and Papas, a couple of famous record producers, a large discography of Manson-made records, and a long list of artists who have at least some relationship to Manson and his people…

I'm Alan Cross and this is episode 14 of “Uncharted: Music and Mayhem in the Music Industry”

This time, it’s the musical nightmare of Charles Manson

Show contact info:

X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross

Website: curiouscast.ca

Email: Alan@alancross.ca

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The Cults of Rock | 13 Apr 16, 2024

Since homo sapiens gained consciousness and self-awareness, we’ve been asking some big questions…what does it all mean?... What’s the purpose of existence?... Is there something more to life and the universe than what I can see?...

This has led us down all kinds of spiritual journeys and rabbit holes…for billions, this means turning to religion…but what if traditional spirituality and beliefs don’t cut it?...if you’re not careful, you might find yourself in a cult…

Maybe you’re seduced by a charismatic leader who claims to have all the answers when it comes to religion, philosophy, spirituality, and maybe even politics…it's non-mainstream stuff, which is part of the appeal…maybe this leader and his followers really do have all the answers to everything you’ve been searching for…

Here’s where things get weird…you’re introduced to unorthodox teachings, strange rituals, odd practices, and wild belief systems…maybe you’re given a task or caught up in the group’s goals and objectives…

Then we get into mind control, brainwashing, shaming, suppression of individual identities, totalitarian enforcement of behaviour, separation from family and friends, and even terrorism, violence, and death…

There are thousands of groups around the world…many are generally benign hare Krishnas, for example…others are sketchy and warrant skepticism…I’d put the wacky Raelians in that group…and a few are downright dangerous…think the Heaven’s Gate UFO group and suicide cult in San Diego…

Now: what happens when you mix cults with music?...a lot of very, very bad things…I'm Alan Cross and this is Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry, episode 13…have i got some stories for you…this is what can happen when music and cults intersect…

Show contact info:

X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross

Website: curiouscast.ca

Email: Alan@alancross.ca

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The Ever-Popular Kurt-Cobain-Was-Murdered Conspiracy | 12 Apr 02, 2024

When something bad happens, we want to know why…the weirder and badder the event, the more we need to know…

It can’t possibly be random…someone needs to be responsible and held accountable…someone needs to be blamed…and there had better not be any loose ends…

Certain segments of the population have always been suspicious of the official story…forget the simplest of most logical explanation…these awful events or phenomenon’s are the work of some kind of secret cabal or organization pulling the strings of life on earth…it was a conspiracy…

For example, the most famous murder of modern times was the assassination of JFK on November 22, 1963…more than sixty years later, it seems like no one believes that lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman…

To be fair, they might be right…there’s been a lot of investigation into the JFK case over the decades…i’m one of those nuts who reads, watches, and listens to everything involved with the assassination…and I gotta tell you that i’m convinced this was the result of a loose need-to-know operation involving the CIA, the deep stage, Cuban exiles, and American mobsters…

There’s also something called “Occam’s razor” which dates back to the 14th century…this Monk—William of Occam—was annoyed at how people blamed supernatural forces when even the simplest thing went wrong…his answer to that was “look, the simplest and most obvious explanation is usually the correct one”…

But try that approach with people who believe the earth is flat and that we never went to the moon…Covid-19 was engineered by the media…and the Illuminati live beneath the Denver airport…

The world of conspiracy theories is a bottomless pit of weirdness…and when it comes to music, one of the deepest and strangest of these theories has to do with what happened above a greenhouse in Seattle on April 5, 1994…

Boy, have I got stories—multiple stories, in fact—about this one…in fact, it might be the most compressive study you’ve ever heard on the subject…this is uncharted: music and mayhem in the music industry, episode 12: it’s the ever-popular Kurt-Cobain-was-murdered theory…

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X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross

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Email: Alan@alancross.ca

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Introducing... Crime Beat | Out of the dark Mar 27, 2024

In the summer of 2006, a young Calgary woman was on top of the world. She had a supportive family, amazing friends and a great job. But life as she knew it came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the night on August 6, 2006. In this episode, Global News senior crime reporter Nancy Hixt shares details of a violent attack- a story that’s every woman’s worst fear.

www.calgarycrimestoppers.org - reference case # 06274598

https://newsroom.calgary.ca/sexual-assault-case-from-2006-has-new-lead/

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Instagram: @nancy.hixt

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NancyHixtCrimeBeat/

Email: nancy.hixt@globalnews.ca

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The Truth About the Rolling Stones and Altamont | 11 Mar 19, 2024

By 1965, change was in the air…a new generation of young people were coming of age and they did not want what their parents did…theirs was the counter-culture, a rebellion and repudiation of the status quo…and for a while it was all peace and love—or at least it pretended to…

Yes, we had the “summer of love” in 1967…the Beatles sang “all you need is love”…John Lennon asked everyone to “give peace a chance”…and there were demonstrations against the war in Vietnam and the military-industrial complex…

Hippies, pacifists, and proponents of civil rights and women’s rights were sure they could make a difference…and some of them definitely did…

But there was a dark side to the 60s…parts of society weren’t keen on granting certain parts of the population equal rights…some groups believed that society needed to be reformed by any means necessary, including the use of violence and domestic terrorism…

Martin Luther King Jr. Was assassinated…Bobby Kennedy was assassinated…there was violence at political conventions…

But many people kept the faith…and the thing that faith ran on was music…music was at the centre of all this promise of cultural change, social change, justice, civil rights, progress, and more..

In August 1969, somewhere between 400,000 and 600,000 people converged on Woodstock, a festival billed as three days of peace and music…

A noble idea, this concept that music could bring everything together to make the world a better place…the legend of Woodstock continues today, decades later…

Some loved what Woodstock symbolized… “we need more of that,” they thought…so they came up with a plan to end the year and the 1960s with a similar event in California…it would be the culmination of the good embodied by the counter-culture and send the world into the 1970s…

It did not turn out that way…instead, the stones got something that has gone down in history as an event that symbolized the dark side of the decade…this is the truth about Altamont…and wow, do I have a story for you…

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X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross

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Black Metal, Death Metal | 10 Mar 05, 2024

Metal is one of the most extreme forms of music ever invented…once you’re inside this tent, you quickly realize that the deeper you go, the more intense the music becomes as people compete to see who can make the heaviest music in the universe…

There are genres with names like power metal, speed metal, thrash, pirate metal, gothic metal, industrial metal, and metal core…

Soon you encounter death metal, an American invention of the mid-80s that features distorted guitars tuned down low and drums that sound like machine guns…vocalists growl, time signatures abruptly change, and if you can make out the lyrics, you’ll hear themes of religion, philosophy, sci-fi and more…

There are offshoots, too, each with their own spin on things…there’s blackened death- doom…deathgrind…goregrind…pornogrind…even “melodic back death war metal…

Death metal has a Scandinavian cousin…black metal…it’s also played fast and often doesn’t follow conventional song structure…vocalists shriek…recordings may be lo-fi…members tend to adopt pseudonyms and used make-up onstage…

And again, if you can make out the lyrics, you’ll hear tales of paganism, Satanist praise, references to the occult, and anti-Christian rage…and unlike other metal genres, followers of black metal have been known to engage in acts of violence, most infamously the burning of churches…

At the heart of the black metal legend is a true tale of suicide, murder and possibly even cannibalism…what you’re about to hear may be impossible to believe, but it happened…

I’m Alan Cross and man, have I got a story for you… this is uncharted: crime and mayhem in the music industry…I call this episode black metal/death metal…

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X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross

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The Mysterious Dissaperance of Richey Edwards | 9 Feb 20, 2024

It’s hard to disappear…with all the surveillance tools out there and digital smog we leave behind, it’s almost impossible to vanish without a trace…yet it happens…

We still haven’t found Amelia Earhart who has been missing since 1937 when she tried to fly around the world…we don’t know what became of DB Cooper, the hijacker who in 1971 bailed out of a plane somewhere in the pacific northwest with $200,000 in ransom money…no one has ever found teamster president jimmy Hoffa after that last lunch in 1975…

And you’ve probably heard about maddy McCann the English child who is still missing since 2007 after disappearing from the bedroom of an apartment at a resort in Portugal…

Those are the most notorious cases….but have you heard these stories?

Edward and Stephanie Andrews left a cocktail party in may 1970…they were last seen turning the wrong way on a one-way street and were never heard from again…the case is still open…

Then we have the case of Peter Winston, a chess prodigy who went missing after bombing out of a tournament in 1977…his body has never been found…

Anyone remember the story of Bison Dele?...he was a retired NBA player who went sailing in the South Pacific and was never seen again…cops think his brother, who was on the boat with him, killed everyone on board, dumped the bodies at sea and then committed suicide…but we’ll never know…

There are mysterious disappearances throughout the history of music, too…one of the most baffling is the fate of Richey Edwards of the Manic Street Preachers…one day he was at a hotel in London getting ready for a trip to North America…the next—who knows?...he was just—gone…vanished without a trace…

So many questions…what happened?...what do we know?...with all the CCTV coverage in the UK, is there no record of his movements?...what was done to find him?...where’s the body?...or could he still be alive?...did he just figure out how to disappear completely…have I got a story for you…

This is the mysterious disappearance of Richey Edwards from “uncharted: crime and mayhem in the music industry”…

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X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross

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Email: Alan@alancross.ca

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Bjork's Stalker - The Acid Bomber | 8 Feb 06, 2024

How many times have you or heard someone say “i’m obsessed with [whatever]”…you’re trying to say that there’s something of which you can’t get enough…it could be anything from a flavour of ice cream to a reality TV show…it’s usually just hyperbole and exaggeration…

But if we get clinical, obsession can be a form of mental illness…we open up the psychology textbooks, we learn that a true obsession is a recurring thought about something or someone…it’s always on a person’s mind, maybe even 24/7…we’re talking thoughts, dreams, urges, and fantasies…

These obsessions, this rabid focus, may be intrusive, unwelcome, all-consuming, and dangerous…a person may end up surrendering themselves to these thoughts, driven to focus on the object of the obsession full-time…

Take the case of John Hinckley, jr…he was from a wealthy Texas family who owned an oil company…but john didn’t fit in…he tried going to university but eventually dropped out…he moved to California with dreams of being a songwriter…that didn’t work…when he returned to Texas, he had to confess that the girlfriend he said he had out west didn’t exist…

Hinckley disappeared into himself with severe emotional issues…antidepressants and tranquilizers were prescribed…but he also started buying guns and target shooting…and he spent a lot of time watching the 1976 Martin Scorsese film, “Taxi Driver”…if you know the film, you’ll know that Robert De Niro plays Travis Bickle, a disturbed loner who plots to kill a presidential candidate…he runs across a 12-year-old prostitute named Iris steesmas, played by Jody Foster…

Hinckley became obsessed with Foster…when she enrolled at Yale, Hinckley moved to Connecticut to stalk her…he left her poems and love letters, and called whenever he could find her number…Hinckley became determined to attract her attention…how?...he thought about hijacking a plane…maybe he’d just show up one day and shoot himself in front of her…

Finally, he determined the best way was to assassinate a president, just like Travis Bickle…he trailed Jimmy Carter for a while but was arrested…more psychiatric treatment followed…and then Ronald Reagan was elected…

On March 30, 1981, Hinckley pulled out a 22-calibre pistol and fired it six times as Reagan left the Hilton Hotel in Washington after addressing a conference…Reagan survived, but it was touch-and-go…others were hurt, too…

After a trial, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity….he was finally released from custody in 2022…

The world of music has many obsessives, although few as extreme as Hinckley…there is one standout, though: a young loner in Florida who, like Hinckley, was determined to attract the attention of his love…in the process, he turned into a murderous hater…

I’m Alan Cross, and have I got a story for you…this is uncharted: crime and mayhem in the music industry episode 8…the tale of the Bjork acid bomber…

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X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross

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The Linkin Park Cyberstalker | 7 Jan 23, 2024

There have been many studies into the different types of music fans…basically, they can be broken down into four types…

At the bottom of the pyramid are people who aren’t fans at all…they don’t like you or don’t care about you…they may not even know who you are…so for the purposes of this discussion, they don’t matter…

The next level are casual fans…they sort of like you or your music, but they can take or leave what you’re selling…they have zero investment in your career…

Going up another level, we have true fans…they love you enough that they’ll spend money on you…they’ll stream your music faithfully, buy physical product like CD’s or vinyl from time-to-time, probably own a t-shirt or two, and will go to your shows and have a very good time…

At the very top are the superfans…superfans love, love, love you…they’re evangelists…they follow your ever move…they’ll buy everything…they’ll get involved and donate to your charitable causes…and they’ll go to all of the shows…they may total 10% of your total fanbase but are the source of the majority of your income—like 60, 70, even 80%...they are the top of the fan pyramid…

From there, though, we can cross over to the dark side…this is where we find the fantasists, the deluded, the obsessed, the trolls, and the insane…they are dangerous people, a threat to you and the people around you…and they show up when you least expect it…and if they break into your online world, that’s a whole new level of terror…

Have i got a story for you…The Linkin Park cyberstalker.

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X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross

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Email: Alan@alancross.ca

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Bob Marley Must Die | 6 Jan 09, 2024

Music can be a powerful motivator…not just for individuals, either…if the message is strong and people are searching for truth, music can transform entire communities and countries around the planet…and its effects can long outlive its creator, inspiring people to action for decades…

Bob Marley was one of those creators…not only can his music be heard in virtually every country, but his image is everywhere, too…I was in a rural village in Poland and while I was looking for somewhere to eat, I came across a building with a huge mural of Marley…

The same thing happened when I was touring through the jungles of Indonesia…there was one shop in this one particular off-the-beaten-path settlement and it was all decked out in bob Marley everything…

It’s universal, these messages of love and positivity and togetherness and righteousness…plus there’s just something about a reggae beat that amplifies the sentiment of the lyrics…

Bob Marley remains one of the most beloved musicians of the last 100 years…so why would anyone want him dead?...there were more than a few people who wished that…they considered him dangerous, a threat, someone who needed to be dealt with before he interfered with their interests…the story involves social movements, local politics, and even players in the cold war between the U.S. and the USSR…

The consensus was Bob Marley must die…

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X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross

Website: curiouscast.ca

Email: Alan@alancross.ca

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The Satanic Panic | 5 Dec 19, 2023

When rock music appeared in the 1950s, a lot of people were frightened…all this dancing and gyrating and hootin’ and hollerin’ was labeled “the devil’s music”…it beckoned youth down a dangerous path towards immorality and destruction…

It encouraged disrespect of parents and elders…it spat in the face of strong traditional values…and this music could only lead to a rise in godlessness, which, of course, meant that everyone was going to hell…

This kind of opposition was seen across the western world but was particularly strong in the united states…preachers railed from pulpits…politicians wailed about juvenile delinquents and their music…rallies were held, records were burned, and this new music was roundly condemned as the worst thing to ever happen to civilization…

For the most part, though, young people ignored this histrionic caterwauling and keeping making and listening to rock…the anti-rock crowd grew even more apoplectic with the rise of the counter-culturalism of the 1960s and early 70s, blaming music for everything from long hair to the sexual revolution to drug use to opposition against foreign wars…

Rock fans took it all in stride… “yeah, whatever…you’re over-reacting…our souls are perfectly safe…tell you what: you do you and we’ll do us, okay?”…and for about a decade, there was this uneasy divide separating rockers from the religious anti-rockers…

Then in the 1980s and 90s, a portion of society lost its collective mind…to these people Satan was everywhere in music…his work and influence needed to be exposed and exorcised from culture…

This wasn’t artistic expression…this was Lucifer’s sneaky way to seize the souls of the vulnerable, impressionable young…the antichrist was at work…evil demonic forces were everywhere…and nothing became more important that casting out Beelzebub’s rock music once and for all…it was nuts…

…I’m Alan Cross and have I got some stories for… this is uncharted: crime and mayhem in the music industry…episode 5…the era of satanic panic

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X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross

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The Led Zeppelin Heist | 4 Dec 05, 2023

In the spring of 1973, Led Zeppelin was the biggest live act in the world…on may 4, they started a two-leg, 34-date tour of North America, their ninth time on the continent…and they began to break records…

There were 53,000 at the first show in Atlanta…the second show—played at Tampa Stadium in Florida—58,600 fans showed up, breaking the attendance record for a gig by a single band set by the Beatles at Shea Stadium in 1965…

The tour wound through the U.S. south, out to the west coast and then back through the north, popping up to Vancouver for one Canadian show…the final three shows were booked for Madison Square Garden in new york on July 27th, 28th and 29th…these nights were also reserved for the filming of a concert film that would become “the song remains the same”…

The first two shows—a Friday and Saturday—went off without a hitch…all they had left was one more concert on Sunday night and then they could go home…

The band was exhausted…they were performing three hours a night…drugs and alcohol and groupies and dealers were everywhere…they had their own private jet which allowed the parties to continue between gigs…

Meanwhile, the money flowing in was unlike anything any other act had every seen…peter grant, the band’s scary manager, had insisted that Zeppelin be paid in cash…only he and road manager Richard Cole ever saw the money…

So who stole nearly $200,000 from the band’s hotel the night of that final gig?...

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X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross

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Email: Alan@alancross.ca

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Music and the Mob | 3 Nov 21, 2023

If there’s money to be made, chances are organized crime will want a piece of it…call it the mob, the mafia, the costa nostra, or “this thing of ours,” these groups, these families are close to the action in some way…

Construction, drugs, alcohol, prostitution, protection rackets, gambling, loan sharking, tax fraud, stock manipulation, corruption of public officials, porn—you name it and there’s a boss and a family that’s looking for a taste if not for outright control…

One thing that I didn’t include on that list is the entertainment industry…I mean, just look at the stories involving Vegas and Atlantic City…stories about movies and studios…and mobsters who are fans of the music industry…

The mob has been involved in music almost since the beginning…as soon crime families began to evolve, consolidate, and exercise power in the late 1800s, hooks were put into performers, composers, venues, and later, record labels…

Money came from shakedowns, skims, theft of copyright, counterfeiting, and fraudulent bookkeeping…businesses, careers, and lives were ruined…people got hurt…and some people died…

Show contact info:

X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross

Website: ajournalofmusicalthings.com

Email: Alan@alancross.ca

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Who Killed Jam Master Jay? | 2 Nov 07, 2023

At around 7:30 on the cold, rainy evening of Wednesday, October 30, 2002, someone walked into the lounge of a recording studio in Jamaica, Queens, New York and fatally shot Jason Mizell with a 40-calbire gun: once to the body and another to the head…he died instantly…and whoever pulled the trigger just walked away…

This was big news…Mizell was better known as Jam Master Jay, the DJ behind Run-DMC—one of the group’s founders in 1982—and one of the most important hip-hop artists in the known universe…

There were been witnesses—but they disagree on what actually happened…there may have been leads—but they all went nowhere…what happened to the security camera footage?…was it tampered with?...and why didn’t the police follow up properly?...for more than two decades, this cold-blooded murder has gone unsolved…

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X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross

Website: ajournalofmusicalthings.com

Email: Alan@alancross.ca

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The Lynyrd Skynyrd Plane Crash | 1 Oct 24, 2023

The old days of air travel were quite risky…compared to today, the chances of your flight going down were far greater …every airport had kiosks and coin-operating vending machines where you could buy life insurance before you headed to the gate—you know, just in case you thought you weren’t going to make it to your final destination…

1977 was one of the worst years for accidents in aviation history…in addition to several violent hijackings every month—sometimes with fatal results—There were also passenger plane crashes with great loss of life…including the worst aviation disaster of all time when two 747s planes collided on a runway in the Canary Islands, killing 583 people.

Frank Sinatra’s mother, the Prime Minister of Yugoslavia, and all but one member of the University of Evansville basketball team died in crashes…

But then there were the events of October 20, 1977, when a rickety chartered plane went down in a swamp in Mississippi…on board were members of Lynyrd Skynyrd…six of the 24 passengers died, including singer Ronnie Van Zandt, guitarist Steve Gaines, backup singer Cassie Gaines, and assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick…both pilots also died…

What happened?

Have I got a story for you...

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X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross

Website: ajournalofmusicalthings.com

Email: Alan@alancross.ca

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Coming October 24th. Oct 06, 2023

In this one-of-a-kind true crime podcast, award-winning music historian and host of the chart topping Ongoing History of New Music, Alan Cross, takes you inside unbelievable stories from murder, to fatal plane crashes, to court battles, and even run-ins with the mob! You’ll hear about the dark side of world of music.

Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry available every other week starting October 24.

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