There was a time when movie soundtracks were the lifeblood of the recorded music industry…the lp record, which was introduced in June 1948, was developed at least partially at the behest of movie studios and Broadway show producers looking a better listening experience. The first movie soundtrack to be released as a record seems to have been “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” in 1938…but the problem was that everything was divided up over multiple 10-inch 78 rpm records…every four minutes, you ha...
Oct 27, 2021•35 min•Ep 295•Transcript available on Metacast In the winter of 1417, a young man named Poggio Braciolini was searching through a library when it found an odd manuscript sitting on a shelf…it was a thousand years old—the last surviving copy of a poem by a roman philosopher named Lucretius… What Lucretius said in this poem was radical—heretical, in fact…what it contained was against all the teachings of God and men…it was called “On The Nature of Things”… First, he posited that the universe operated without Gods and that matter was made of ti...
Oct 20, 2021•34 min•Ep 294•Transcript available on Metacast Not everyone who managed to change the world is famous…it is possible to do something absolutely, monumentally world-shaking and not receive any recognition for it… I’ll give you a name: Vasyli Arkipov…it’s possible that this guy is the only reason any of us are still alive…seriously… October 27, 1962…it’s the height of the Cuban missile crisis…the soviets had nukes in Cuba aimed at the u.s. and more were on the way…John Kennedy responded by setting up a blockade around the island… The USS Rando...
Oct 13, 2021•35 min•Ep 293•Transcript available on Metacast When a movie is successful, someone somewhere wants more…that’s when we get a sequel…if that follow-up does well, then the sequel gets a sequel…and if that film has traction, well, then you reach the level of franchise… We’ve seen many movie franchises over the decades, Star Wars and Star Trek being among the most famous…but then we have all the Fast and the Furious films, Harry Potter, Rocky, Mission Impossible, Planet of the Apes, Toy Story, Lord of the Rings, and so on… And I haven’t even men...
Oct 06, 2021•35 min•Ep 292•Transcript available on Metacast There are three moments when I remember looking at something in my hands and realizing that this was going to change my life… The first time was on my sixth birthday when my grandmother gave me a portable transistor radio…I was still awfully young, but I somehow knew that I could now control not only what I listened to but where and when… The second time was in 1999 when I was given a prototype of a device called an RCA Lyra…it was an early digital music player, capable of holding up to an hour’...
Sep 29, 2021•41 min•Ep 291•Transcript available on Metacast One of the many great things about music is that we can enjoy it anywhere…I’m talking about the recorded kind…everyone has a smartphone, and every smartphone has the capability of playing music, whether you’re listening to tracks stored in its memory or streaming something from a service like Spotify or apple music…as long as your device has juice, you can enjoy listening to music anywhere you are… Take this program, for example…in its radio show form, it’s being heard in homes, cars, offices, a...
Sep 22, 2021•43 min•Ep 290•Transcript available on Metacast Long before I started doing this for a living, I had the notion that I was going to be a record producer…after all, I loved music and the idea of being able to help record it would be a great job… So as high school wound down, I started to look around for schools that taught music production…and that’s when reality set it…all of them asked for a portfolio of past work…I was 18 years old and from a small prairie town…how was I supposed to have a portfolio of past work?... They also made it clear ...
Sep 15, 2021•51 min•Ep 289•Transcript available on Metacast When it comes to music, not all years are created equal…listen, every year features some great new songs from great new bands…but over the long term, this music isn’t equally distributed…sometimes—maybe once a decade, but usually less—we run into what can only be described as an embarrassment of riches… What i mean by that is that we go through a period where every week—even every day—seems to bring something amazing… Like when?...1955, maybe…Elvis…Chuck Berry…Little Richard….Bo Diddley…Bill Hal...
Sep 08, 2021•32 min•Ep 288•Transcript available on Metacast Whenever an artist goes into the studio, they hope for the best but expect the worst…you want it the album to sell and turn you into a global superstar with all the rights and privileges thereto…but there is no way to predict how the public will react to what you release… You can throw all the money you want a song, an album, a band and there is zero guarantee that it will be successful…yet people will always try because every once in a while, something remarkable happens… An album is a critical...
Sep 01, 2021•30 min•Ep 287•Transcript available on Metacast On March 9, 1987—a little more than ten years after a bunch of kids met up in a Dublin kitchen—U2 released their fifth album…expectations were running pretty high…after establishing themselves with their first two albums, there was a leap ahead with the “War” album in 1983… But then came “The Unforgettable Fire” in 1984…that represented another leap forward…things seemed more sophisticated, stronger, bigger, better…much of the credit has to go to the new production team of Brian Eno and Daniel L...
Sep 01, 2021•32 min•Ep 286•Transcript available on Metacast “Even though it was the middle of summer, it was cold and wet,” Rob Baker remembers, “and after a full day in the studio, there was nothing to do but go back to where we were staying and watch the Olympics that were happening in Barcelona…and they were still talking about Canada and what happened with Ben Johnson four years earlier.” The Tragically Hip were in the UK, recording what would be their third full studio album at Battery Studios, a facility protected from the rest of the surrounding g...
Aug 25, 2021•29 min•Ep 285•Transcript available on Metacast How well do you get along with your siblings?—assuming you have any, of course…brothers and sisters can be a pain, especially when you’re always in close quarters…and when you have to work with them, too—gawd, that can be ugly… We’ve talked about musical feuds before… Madonna did not get along with her brother, Christopher Ciccone, especially after he published a memoir about growing up with her…things seem to be okay right now… The Everly brothers, Don and Phil, did not get along…after a speed-...
Aug 18, 2021•27 min•Ep 284•Transcript available on Metacast Siblings can be a pain in the butt…just because you’re related to someone doesn’t mean you’re going to get along…not everyone can be Venus and Serena Williams…here: lemme give you some examples… Ann Landers and Dear Abbey were real people—and they were sisters: Eppie and Pauline Lederer…despite having newspaper columns were famous for dishing out all sorts of relationship advice to readers, they didn’t apply that wisdom to themselves…they spent their lives antagonizing each other… Adolf and Rudo...
Aug 11, 2021•25 min•Ep 283•Transcript available on Metacast There's been a lot of talk and the Christian Rock scene....especially in new rock. And many feel the bands don't get their due. They are looked at preachy do-gooders. But that's not always the case. And many bands are crossing over. So let's have a better look and clear up many misconceptions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Aug 04, 2021•33 min•Ep 282•Transcript available on Metacast This is a course in Rock Snobery. To help you understand why some terms exist in music and what they actually mean. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jul 28, 2021•35 min•Ep 281•Transcript available on Metacast This week we look at one of the most under appreciated and underrated members of any rock band...the bass player. These are the most influential bass players in the history of alt-rock. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jul 21, 2021•36 min•Ep 280•Transcript available on Metacast Beauty is in the eye of the beholder—or in the case of music, the ear…what’s pleasant to one person is nothing but noise to someone else… This is where it’s good to have some patience…there are some forms of art whose beauty isn’t obvious at first…you need to stick with it…and after you’ve given it a chance and you’ve decided that it’s not for you, fine… But what about those times where something happens—suddenly or slowly and either on your own or with the prompting of someone else—and you real...
Jul 14, 2021•39 min•Ep 279•Transcript available on Metacast For a very long time—too long—women were locked in very defined roles when it came to rock’n’roll…girls were expected to look pretty and do little more than sing…okay, maybe shake a tambourine or something…but that was about it… And when it came to singing, “just stick with conventional stuff, dear…don’t get any crazy ideas in your head…this is a woman’s role in rock and you should stick to it…that’s a nice little lady”… But then along came punk rock in the 1970s…punk did many things for rock—in...
Jul 07, 2021•36 min•Ep 278•Transcript available on Metacast One of the most useful things about music is that it can be used to tell the world who you are…we’ve all done it…it is a symbol of our individuality and belief in personal freedom…it proclaims our identity to the world… Once you start doing that, you inevitably find that there are people just like you…once you’re drawn together by a love of a common sort of music, you find that you have other shared interests… You start hanging out, maybe at a specific place…maybe you begin to talk about other t...
Jun 30, 2021•37 min•Ep 277•Transcript available on Metacast There is absolutely no need for music—speaking in terms of evolution, anyway… As far as scientists can tell, there’s no compelling reason for humans to make and enjoy music…neurologically, we could get along quite well without it…sure, our world would be very dull, but we’d be fine as a species… Yet for some reason, the human brain seems to be hardwired for music…and it looks like even the non-human brain was constructed this way…archeologists found a flute made out of bone constructed by neande...
Jun 23, 2021•37 min•Ep 276•Transcript available on Metacast I think one of the greatest gifts humans have is a sense of curiosity…the ability to question things around to learn why things are the way they are pushes us forward… Here are my three favourite questions that i think everyone should ask…are we alone in the universe?...who really killed JFK?...and what do dogs dream about when they twitch in their sleep?... But there are plenty of questions we don’t ask that we probably should…let me give you a few examples… When a prisoner about to be executed...
Jun 16, 2021•43 min•Ep 275•Transcript available on Metacast So you’ve decided to go all retro and dive into vinyl…no more digital for you…you are going back to the future…it’s all about analogue, baby… Buh-bye, mp3s and digital downloads—except maybe for the songs you want to load on your phone…but that’s the one and only exception…other than the songs you want to play through your car’s entertainment system…that’s two exceptions and no more…unless we count the songs you want to send to friends…those three situations cover off everything—except for the d...
Jun 09, 2021•40 min•Ep 274•Transcript available on Metacast Sometimes, the pressures of life become a little too much and the methods of escape you choose to cope with them aren’t exactly the best ones…over-indulgence with and reliance upon drugs and/or alcohol is never, ever a good thing…and once you get so far down this road, you need help… When you’re a musician, you have to deal with a whole new set of circumstances…long days, weird hours, bad food, poverty…or maybe you’ve struck it rich and you can’t handle the fame… Or maybe you love the fame a lit...
Jun 02, 2021•42 min•Ep 273•Transcript available on Metacast On Saturday, August 20, 2016, tens of millions of Canadians watched and listened to the final Tragically Hip concert from Kingston…given Gord Downie’s illness, we knew that was the last time we’d see the band perform together live… That was followed by one of the saddest days in the history of Canadian music…. October 17, 2017, the day Gord Downie died…one tweet summed up everything: “Canada closed: death in the family”… So that was it, then…after more than 30 years, the most Canadian rock band ...
May 26, 2021•46 min•Ep 272•Transcript available on Metacast It takes a special kind of band to obscure their appearance…but if you can do it right, then it moves from being a silly gimmick to an important piece of your identity, image, and brand.… When Kiss came along in the early 70s with their Japanese kabuki-inspired makeup, it wasn’t that far out…they came from New York where there was a glitter scene that had a lot of guys wearing make-up…kiss just took it to an extreme: The Demon, Star Child, Spaceman, and Catman… It worked--eventually…Kiss has sol...
May 19, 2021•35 min•Ep 271•Transcript available on Metacast Before we begin, I am very aware that there are people listening to this program who have never, ever set foot in a record store…they came of age musical after the Internet changed everything about how we hear about, acquire, and consume music… But remember this: for over a hundred years, the only way you could hear music on-demand was to own it…you had to purchase a piece of plastic for x dollars and for that price, you could listen to that music an infinite number of times for no additional ch...
May 12, 2021•43 min•Ep 270•Transcript available on Metacast What do you for fun?...hobbies, pastimes—things that you do just for you, away from your job and all your other responsibilities?... I’ve got my dogs…my wife and I like to travel…and I’ve always had this thing about the JFK assassination…I’ve read all the books, seen all the documentaries…I’ve even been to Dallas and the grassy knoll, and the book depository…I can’t explain it, but I just find it interesting… Maybe you’re into sports…collecting hockey cards or wine or rare scotches…video games, ...
May 05, 2021•39 min•Ep 269•Transcript available on Metacast Let me say from the outset that I have nothing against small towns…I grew up in one myself…population: 2000…it was in the middle of the Canadian prairies…the nearest big city was Winnipeg…after that, you had to go at least 500 miles before you hit any major population centre… I also want to make sure to let you know that I think living in a small town is a not bad idea…it’s not…it can be a wonderful, low-stress, low-cost secure existence…a lot of the people I went to school with still live in my...
Apr 28, 2021•39 min•Ep 268•Transcript available on Metacast The original punk rock explosion of the 1970s was two things…first, it was a major reset for rock’n’roll…think of it as a great musical decluttering… Punk of the 70s wasn’t revolutionary…it was reactionary…the music was stripped back, and everyone went back to the basics…very important… Second, there was an attitude shift…one of the central tenets of punk was that if you had the guts to say something, then do it…and if no one wanted to help you, well, then do it on your own… Taken together, thes...
Apr 21, 2021•33 min•Ep 267•Transcript available on Metacast Every once in a while, music enters a state of flux where the direction of everything is, shall we say, undefined…we see and hear change but we’re not quite sure what it all means just yet…something is coming—but what?... All bets are off, the rulebook has been declared invalid, and everyone is off doing their own thing… I’ll give you an example…in mid-to-late 1950s Britain, popular music was evolving and mutating very quickly…in the midst of imported American rock’n’roll records, the skiffle cr...
Apr 14, 2021•36 min•Ep 266•Transcript available on Metacast 
