442 episodes

Ongoing History of New Music looks at things from the alt-rock universe to hip hop, from artist profiles to various thematic explorations. It is Canada’s most well known music documentary hosted by the legendary Alan Cross. Whatever the episode, you’re definitely going to learn something that you might not find anywhere else. Trust us on this.

Ongoing History of New Music Ongoing History of New Music

    • Music
    • 4.9 • 491 Ratings

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Ongoing History of New Music looks at things from the alt-rock universe to hip hop, from artist profiles to various thematic explorations. It is Canada’s most well known music documentary hosted by the legendary Alan Cross. Whatever the episode, you’re definitely going to learn something that you might not find anywhere else. Trust us on this.

Listen on Apple Podcasts
Requires subscription and macOS 11.4 or higher

    Rock Stars Who Were Murdered

    Rock Stars Who Were Murdered

    You would think that being a musician would be a very safe existence…I mean, your job is to write and perform music…yeah, you might get into the odd altercation and fight, but it’s not like you’re going to war, right?...yet every once in a while, we hear about a musician being murdered…

    The earliest example I can find is Alessandro Stradella, an Italian composer of classical music…back in his day—which was the mid-1600s—he was quite the star and was very influential with his six operas, 170 cantatas, and a long list of instrumental compositions…

    But then on February 25, 1682, he was found stabbed to death in a public square in Genoa…no one was ever convicted although the story is that he was murdered by one of three brothers who accused Stradella of seducing their sister…

    The first musician I know of who got shot was Pinetop Smith, a boogie-woogie piano player from Chicago…in 1929, just as he was about to go into a recording session, he was shot during a fight at a dance hall…he might not have been the intended victim, but he died all the same…

    And the first musician of the rock’n’roll era to be murdered was probably Sam Cooke on December 11, 1964…fantastic soul singer…he took a gunshot wound to the chest when Bertha Franklin, the manager of the Hacienda Motel in South Central L.A.…she said it was in self-defence but even today, there are a lot of questions about the case…How many other rock musicians have been murdered since then?...fortunately, not a lot…but there is a tragic list…let’s go through it…

    StarsNCarsNRockNRoll

    StarsNCarsNRockNRoll

    Next to music and my dogs, my biggest obsession is cars…I’ve always been a car nut…i’m one of those people with a list of cars I’ll buy when I win the lottery…
    I’ll start with production sports cars…a Porsche 911 Turbo 4 will be my daily driver, although there will be a Lamborghini Uris SUV for those times I need to haul people and stuff…for those summer days, I think a McLaren 750s Spider would be cool…
    I’ll need a car for track days, of course…no one else in the neighbourhood would have a Koenigsegg…I’d probably order the Jekso Absolute…1600 horsepower sounds about right…
    And just to show everyone that I’m not out to completely destroy the planet, there will be at least one EV…right now, that would be a Rimac Nevera…
    That’s what? Four million dollars worth of vehicles?...not including insurance and maintenance, of course…I’m never going to win that kind of lottery, but it’s nice to dream…
    For other people, though, this is the kind of machinery sitting in their air-conditioned, highly secure underground garages…that includes a lot of rock stars…
    Eric Clapton is so well-known at Ferrari that the company built him a custom one-of-a-kind model that probably cost him upwards of five million…Neil Peart had a selection of very collectible sports cars from the 1960s, all in silver…
    Brian Johnson of AC/DC has a bunch of Bentleys, Ferraris, and some classic race cars…same with Nick Mason of Pink Floyd…he’s even written a book about this collection…
    Then there’s everything we use in the car to listen to music…radio, car audio, satellite radio, infotainment systems and all that…
    All this got me thinking about the relationship between cars and rock…the two things go hand-in-hand…I think we should look at this history, don’t you?
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    • 44 min
    The Surprising History of Surf Music

    The Surprising History of Surf Music

    Every once in a long while, a new genre of popular music emerges, evolves a little bit and then stays almost exactly the same with only the slightest of variations…not that there’s anything wrong with that…a formula is discovered…it seems to work…so why change it?...
    Old-school 12-bar blues is an example…it features one of the most common chord progressions in Western music…the style of lyrics, phrasing, structure, and duration have been pretty much standard since the days of gospel and spirituals and African-based oral traditions…an Alabama musician named W.C. Handy was the first to codify 12-bar blues playing around 1905…
    Ska might be an example…it has many different flavours, but there are common components under the hood, rooted in playing on the off-beat—the “one” and “three” instead of the “two” and “four”…
    You might say the same about Reggae and its foundations in the debow beat, although you’ll probably get a little pushback from fans…
    Lemme throw this into the mix: garage rock…two or three chords played on guitar, bass, and drums with a loose, rebellious vibe…nothing too complicated…it’s just gotta feel good…
    And here’s one more that might not spring to mind right away: surf music…it, too, can come in different forms…as a type of garage rock…it can be punky…it can be hardcore…it’s great for skateboarding or snowboarding…and yes, it’s also about the beach, the boards, and the swells…
    But it’s also more than that…it’s about guitars, amps, pedals, amps, cars, girls, beer, and parties…it can feature vocals but it might be best experienced as instrumentals….
    There’s a lot more to surf music than you might think…and its importance and influence and legacy goes far beyond the beach...…here…let me show you.

    Show contact info:
    X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross
    Website: curiouscast.ca
    Email: Alan@alancross.ca
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    • 28 min
    More and More Medical Mysteries of Music

    More and More Medical Mysteries of Music

    I want you to take a deep breath…
    It’s only when we focus on our breathing that we realize how important it is that 21% of our atmosphere is made up of oxygen…that is the ideal amount…
    Drop too, say 15%, and it would cause all sorts of mental and physical impairment…if the oxygen levels were to increase suddenly, we’d suffer “oxygen toxicity,” meaning that our cells would oxidize, leading to exhaustion and death…
    Meanwhile, spiders, roaches, and other crawly things would grow bigger and bigger because of their biology… if you think we have a wildfire problem now, imagine if those fires had more oxygen as fuel…
    So, unless you’re hoping for a burning planet covered in spiders the size of a compact car, 21% it is…
    Music is such an integral of our lives that we have no idea how important it is…I can even tell you…a study by Deezer, the French streaming service, says that to maintain a healthy lifestyle, we should listen to 78 minutes of music per day…
    The study broke things down even further…that 78 minutes should be portioned this way for maximum benefit…
    ·      14 minutes of uplifting music to exercise your happiness.
    ·      16 minutes of calming music
    ·      16 minutes of music that counteracts sadness.
    ·      15 minutes of motivational music to help with concentration.
    ·      And 17 minutes of music that will help you deal with anger.
    A few suggestions come with the study, too. Abba’s “Dancing Queen” is an example of the sort of happy music we should appreciate…when it comes to anger management, AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” is about perfect, although certain tracks from Rammstein and Metallica are good, too—and Mozart for some reason…
    This stuff fascinates me…and whenever I run across a study or some research that connects music and the brain and our overall mental and physical help, I bookmark it…and I’ve bookmarked so much that we can now do a full program on it…
    This is another instalment of “The Medical Mysteries of Music”

    Show contact info:
    X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross
    Website: curiouscast.ca
    Email: Alan@alancross.ca
    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    • 33 min
    The Most Dangerous Artists in Rock

    The Most Dangerous Artists in Rock

    One of the most attractive things about rock is that it’s often dangerous…from the very beginning, rock has been about rebellion, a disregard for the rules, and thumbing its nose at the status quo…rage against the machine summed it up nicely with their song “killing in the name… f-you, I won’t do what you tell me…
    There’s an edginess to rock that’s addictive…most of us live pretty normal lives, so there’s something cathartic seeing rock stars live out our wildest, most reckless impulses and fantasies…rock stars get to do what we wish we could…
    When we go to a show, there’s always that hope we’re going to see and experience something a little unhinged, unpredictable, and primal…between gigs, we like to soak up the gossip and stories of bad behaviour from books, biopics, and social media…
    The music is fine…but we also want spectacle on and off stage…
    It’s all in good fun—until it’s not…there are limits to what we think is okay…legal lines can be crossed…and there are aesthetic, ethical, and moral areas that are just off limits…
    But here’s the thing about some artists…they don’t care…they live in their own reality where the normal rules of society just don’t hold…we might see behaviours that are thoughtless, selfish, overly audacious, negligent, self-destructive, incredibly violent, and downright criminal…
    For some, this is a lifestyle…for others, their dangerousness relates to illness, out-of-control passions, and, in some cases negligence and misadventure…
    In short, there’s a subset of rock stars who are genuinely dangerous, not to themselves but others…and once we start seeking out these people and examining their actions, what we find can be terrifying on a series of different levels.
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    • 38 min
    1994

    1994

    The 1990s was a golden era for Gen X music fans…classic and heritage artists were still a thing, but it was clear that a new generation of rock artists was in control and was releasing music that captured the hopes, dreams, wishes, anger, and aggression of young people…we hadn’t seen that kind of thing since the 70s during the punk, post-punk, and new wave times…and for a little while, pop was not dominant…it was a time for rock-with-a-capital-R…
     Things really got into gear in 1991…momentum carried over to 1992 and 1993…and by the time we got to 1994, we were living in an alt-rock world…was it the greatest year for alternative ever?...maybe…let’s explore that…
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    • 31 min

Customer Reviews

4.9 out of 5
491 Ratings

491 Ratings

Jimmy weight ,

Amazing

Amazing podcast he really just digs in and gives so much information

manayunk wall ,

Good, but....

Content is really top notch. But you are lsoing me on all these commercials/advertisements!!! It really is 6 minutes of content 3 minutes of ads. It's just too much to bare. You lose me sometimes. You gotta make money but there is a tippng point. And you are on the edge.

Malory Young ,

Fascinating and grounding

I’ve been listening for a couple years and absolutely love the show. So thorough, excellent perspective, and always makes me feel warm and excited and more connected to my own lived history :)

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