Before we get to the topic at hand, I’d like to revisit the movie “Forrest Gump,” specifically Forrest’s shrimp boat buddy, Benjamin Buford Blue—but you can just call him Bubba…he knew all the ways one could serve up shrimp… What Bubba could do for shrimp, other people can do for punk…punk rock comes in as many different varieties of shrimp…there’s hardcore punk, ska-punk, cyberpunk, synthpunk, anarcho-punk, cowpunk, gypsy punk, Christian punk, Celtic punk, art punk, garage punk, glam punk, crus...
Oct 07, 2020•24 min•Ep 239•Transcript available on Metacast At some point, you may end up being invited to your high school reunion—and you’re probably going to go because you wanna see what happened to all those people… Where’s the jock that made your life miserable?...the girl or the guy who snubbed you for that date and broke your heart…the shy, nerdy guy who was really smart…who did well?...who got what was coming to them… But—oh, wait: people at the reunion are going to be thinking the same about you…how’s your hair and your waistline and your compl...
Sep 30, 2020•25 min•Ep 238•Transcript available on Metacast Sometimes, life becomes too much…things get too weird, there’s too much pressure, too many decisions, too many wrong choices….the uncertainty builds—and then you just kinda lose it… We lose the plot, go off the rails, hit the ditch, blow a gasket, and generally freak out…sometimes, these incidents are fueled by drugs, alcohol and mental illness…other times, it’s the body and brain’s way of saying “thanks, but I’ve had enough for now…I’m going to go over here and have me a little breakdown right ...
Sep 23, 2020•32 min•Ep 237•Transcript available on Metacast There’s something about creative types that make them different than the rest of us…if you’ve ever spent any kind of time with any kind of artist, you’ll what I mean…they’re just different, you know?... That’s not any kind of judgment…it’s just an honest observation…they look at the universe differently, feel things in ways we don’t, and interpret life in interesting ways…that’s what makes them artists—and it’s why they’re so important to the rest of us… Sometimes, though, some of them will lose...
Sep 16, 2020•29 min•Ep 236•Transcript available on Metacast This show is going to blow the lid off some secrets and mysteries in new rock. Admittedly some you may have already have heard rumours about, but others....well this may be the first time you are ever hearing about them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sep 09, 2020•29 min•Ep 235•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Sep 04, 2020•47 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 Dece...
Sep 02, 2020•26 min•Ep 234•Transcript available on Metacast 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 Monkey...
Aug 26, 2020•27 min•Ep 233•Transcript available on Metacast 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adc...
Aug 19, 2020•33 min•Ep 232•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ful...
Aug 12, 2020•25 min•Ep 231•Transcript available on Metacast 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’...
Aug 06, 2020•28 min•Ep 230•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jul 29, 2020•35 min•Ep 229•Transcript available on Metacast Friday, August 16, 1974, was a hot summer day in New York City…it was 31 degrees, but the humidity made it feel a lot hotter…and if you were down in the Bowery amidst all the concrete, it was hotter still...and it smelled… This part of the city was, to be honest, rather uncivilized…it was a slum…lots of garbage, broken windows, abandoned buildings, drug addicts and homeless people…but there were also businesses and places to hang out—like a dive bar at 315 Bowery at Bleeker called CBGB… Even tho...
Jul 24, 2020•37 min•Ep 228•Transcript available on Metacast when you’re the lead singer in a band, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get all the attention…after all, you are the visual and audio focal point for pretty much everything… Yeah, there might be a hot guitarist or someone else flashy in the group, but for the 99% of the time, the spotlight is on you…which is fine if you’re the lead singer… But if you’re not?...what if you’re the schlep on bass or drums?...what if you’re the newest member of the band and you haven’t earned the right to claim any ...
Jul 22, 2020•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jul 15, 2020•23 min•Ep 226•Transcript available on Metacast Goth has always had a bad rap and that's not fair to the music, the fans and the fashion so we're going to try to clear everything up with our deep dive. Don't worry...no one's going to get hurt. We examine the Alt-Rock scene from the early 70's and take it right up to today. This is "Good Goth" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jul 08, 2020•23 min•Ep 225•Transcript available on Metacast 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! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jul 03, 2020•28 min•Ep 224•Transcript available on Metacast 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 c...
Jun 26, 2020•29 min•Ep 223•Transcript available on Metacast We all know that Canada has created some of the biggest selling musicians in the world. I mean think about it... Celine, Alanis, Shania, Nickelback, Drake, Bieber, The Weekend....you get the idea. I mean by capita...does any other country really come close? But what about those behind the scenes like record producers? Canadian's shaped some of the most important and influential bands and artists in new rock history. We have a long history of production talent and we look at the legends and the n...
Jun 24, 2020•22 min•Ep 222•Transcript available on Metacast They only exhisted for barely 4 years and released just 4 albums but without them would there be a Smashing Pumpkins? Nine Inch Nails? Marilyn Manson? White Zombie? This is a program in the "what's the big deal series?". An occasional look at why todays music sounds like it does and this time it's one of the most influcential bands of the 80's We ask: "What's The Big Deal About Bauhaus?!?" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jun 17, 2020•22 min•Ep 221•Transcript available on Metacast This is part 2 of our Oral History of Madchester as told by someone who was there to see it and make it happen. Gaz Whelan of the Happy Monday's! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jun 12, 2020•29 min•Ep 220•Transcript available on Metacast This week it's the Oral History of Madchester as told by someone who was there to see it and make it happen. Gaz Whelan of the Happy Monday's! This really is something else... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 28, 2020•33 min•Ep 219•Transcript available on Metacast The problem with so many interviews is that they can come across as interrogations…” I have a list of questions I must get through in the allotted time so let’s begin”… Depending on the circumstances, that’s sometimes the route you have to take…but there’s nothing more human than sitting down for a simple chat…if you can get some people in a room and just get them talking, then everyone forgets they’re being interviewed for something… They get into a groove and start remembering things and telli...
May 20, 2020•37 min•Ep 218•Transcript available on Metacast Recently, I had a chance to sit down with Ian Thornley to talk about his career in our ongoing series of “in their own words” shows And this time we cover everything…and I mean everything…. This is Ian Thornley, in his own words, part 1… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 13, 2020•34 min•Ep 216•Transcript available on Metacast One of the most robust creatures on the planet is the cockroach…gross things, but you have to admire ability to survive…I mean, they’ve been around for 280 million years… Not only can a cockroach hold its breath for 40 minutes, live for a month without food and run up to three miles per hour, but one can live for up to a week without its head…I repeat: without its head! Impressive, but there’s a tiny creature known as a tartigrade that’s even toucher…one of these things are about half millimeter...
May 06, 2020•38 min•Ep 213•Transcript available on Metacast This episode begins shortly after 9 am on the Saturday I turned 6…for reasons that will forever remain mysterious, the present from my grandmother was a Lloyds portable transistor radio…model tr-62…made in Taiwan…built with 6 transistors… This thing revealed a wider world to me…I grew up in a small town with three tv stations (one of which was in French) and the only radio I heard was what mom and dad listened in the kitchen or in the car… But now that I had my own radio, I discovered that there...
Apr 29, 2020•36 min•Ep 212•Transcript available on Metacast In the olden days of newspapers—and I’m talking decades ago—there was a specific way printing photographs…photos were given to the printer who copied the picture using a special camera that converted everything to something known as “half-tone” so it could be put in the paper… If you looked closely at the resulting picture, you’d see that it was made up of a pattern of dots…each one was a different size and proportional to the blackness of the original photo in that particular location of the ph...
Apr 22, 2020•39 min•Ep 211•Transcript available on Metacast When it comes to music, it’s so easy to get lost in the weeds…to become distracted by all the minutiae and trivia… There’s nothing wrong with that, of course…it’s the study of exactly this kind of granular stuff that pays my salary…however, there is a “can’t see the forest for the trees” angle to all this… Sometimes, we need to stand way back—and I mean way back—before some vital things come into focus… I’m not talking about just learning not just to see the trees but the forest, but the whole o...
Apr 15, 2020•32 min•Ep 210•Transcript available on Metacast Back in the day...when singles were released on vinyl...you needed to put a song on either side of the record. Sometimes it was another version of the same song, or just the same song again, or maybe a live version...or maybe something completely different. A song that the band didn't know what to do with. Something special...something unique. What I've gathered here are 9 great B-Sides. Some are landmark singles in a bands history, some are ones you might never have heard before... Learn more a...
Apr 14, 2020•27 min•Ep 209•Transcript available on Metacast People often ask me where I come up with ideas for this program…my answer is always the same… you know that feeling when it’s Sunday night and you promise yourself you’ll start on that assignment that’s due the next morning as soon as “the Simpsons” is over?... Yeah, that’s me…every week…and after more than 700 of these one-hour assignments stretching back to 1993, I hit a wall…total writer’s block… I started to panic…there are hard deadlines…I have a contract…I’m expected to deliver another new...
Apr 02, 2020•34 min•Ep 208•Transcript available on Metacast 
