Ongoing History of New Music

If you’re a fan of a particular artist, you want to know everything you can about them…maybe you scour things like their official bios, their Wikipedia pages and maybe read through as many interviews and articles as you can…

All that is fine…but what if there’s a way to get more?....

When it comes to telling the story of an artist, it is always best if you get the artist to tell it themselves…you get the unvarnished truth, told from the heart by the people who are actually making the music…

That’s great in theory, but it’s awfully difficult to get everyone in one place at one time, what with touring schedules, recording commitments and life…but if there’s just two people, then it’s a little easier…

With a little bit of wrangling, I managed to get Ash and Jay from USS into the studio…has their story been told before?...yes, of course…but not like this…

This is USS in their own words, part 1…

I love the smell and feel of recording studios…if you’ve been inside a proper one, you’ll know what i mean…

The air is kept clean and dust-free to protect the equipment…the a/c is usually cranked up to offset the heat generated by the electronics…there’s a slight whiff of ozone created by all the electrical circuits…and it’s usually very, very quiet…loads of isolation and baffling and sound-proofing…

To me, a recording studio is the musical equivalent of an operating theatre; a place that’s dedicated to one thing and one thing only…and what goes on within the walls is deadly serious…

Okay, I’m not saying that recording a song is the same as a heart transplant or something, but there is the same sort of vibe…

There used to be dozens and dozens of these places around the planet…people would travel thousands of kilometers to work there because they were thought to be magical in some way…

But that’s when you needed a full-equipped recording studio to make a record…today, you can do a pretty good job with a laptop in your bedroom…

Many of the legendary studios are gone, a victim of the changing economics of the music industry…a few of these behemoth still exist…

This is another look at the world’s legendary recording studios, both past and present…

 

Songs in this Episode:

David Bowie - Life on Mars

Sex Pistols - Holiday in the Sun

The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony

Mumford & Sons - Believe

The Clash - The Magnificent Seven

The Black Keys - Tighten Up

The Tragically Hip - Poets

Bob Marley and the Wailers - No Woman, No Cry

Every song comes from some sort of story. Sometimes it’s just the story of a feeling…good or bad…or maybe it’s just a way of getting a point of view across.

Other songs are actual stories. They have a narrative, characters, drama, beginning, middle and end.

But what if you’re a composer and you have a story that is too long….too complex to fit in the standard four minute song. Well then maybe you need to think about breaking it out to its constituent parts and telling the story across multiple songs. You do this over enough songs and you create a concept album. A record where a story or a variety of themes tie everything together front to back and back to front.

Your four-minute short story has turned into an hour-long novel.

This is part 2 of the history of the concept album in alt-rock.

It's not easy making a living as a rock band in Canada...

This is afterall the second largest country in the world. And when you consider that the Trans-Canada Highway is over 7600 kilometers long, and there is nearly 10 million square kilomters of land spead out over 6 time zones, well...it's a little daunting to say the least.

 And even though 77% of Canada's 36 million people live in big cities, bands still have to work really really hard to reach everyone.  

It's even harder when you factor in that we live right next door to the largest exporter of pop-culture in the universe. 

Geography has chewed up the domestic careers of countless bands...but some have it figured out. They've got the routine and fanbase all figured out. They may not be rich, but they are making a solid and respectable living as rock stars in Canada.

Sloan is one of those bands. They've been around since 1991and have become somewhat of a Canadian institution. 

This is Sloan in Their Own Words...Part 2.

There are many ways to tell a story...a book, a movie, at TV, a comic book. You also use music of course; a ballad is a story set to music,  a lot of music videos tell a story. Operas and ballet are more grand. 

The other musical option is the concept album. These are records where all the songs, all  the imagery, is somehow tied togethor by some sort of unifying theme or thesis. The music, the lyrics and sometimes even the artwork come togehtor to tell a story. 

These were big in the '60's and 70's but they were seen as old rock and needed to be expunged from popular culture. 

But then a funny thing happened. They started to make a comeback...the stigma vanished, and they even found a place in Alt-Rock.

Here...let me show you.

Songs in this episode:

Green Day - American Idiot,

David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust,

Kraftwerk - Computer Love,

Husker Du - Pink Turns to Blue,

Nine Inch Nails - Hurt,

Smashing Pumpkins - Bullet With Butterfly Wings,

Weezer - No Other One,

Tool - Stinkfist,

Marilyn Manson - Beautiful People

We were able to get Chris Murphy and Jay Ferguson in a studio and we thought it best to get them to explain the history of Sloan...in their own words.

No one goes to or holds a concert with the idea of anyone being hurt...but...stuff happens. Well, what kind of stuff?  Well...I'm glad you asked

Ska is not onto its 3rd wave...and that's what we're going to explore.

How many of today's Ska fans...and there are millions and millions of them all across the world...realise how deep and how rich, and how complicated the history of this music really is?

From first wave, through second wave, and finally the present third wave of Ska...We think it's time to check it out.

This is the first part of our in depth look at the history of Ska.

On this Podcast, conclude our 2009 profile of Rage Against The Machine. Few bands in Alt-Rock are as passionate, powerful and influenctial as these four guys. We trace the roots of Rage from their earliest bands, all the way through their reunion in the late 00's.

Enjoy. And turn this one up!