If there’s an official mission statement for the kind of music we all love, it’s “sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll” …these are the three main food groups in this world…

All three of these things affect the same portions of the brain:  the amygdala, the nucleus accumbens, and the cerebellum…. All of them are involved in the secretion and regulation of dopamine, the “feel-good” hormone… 

Dopamine is a very addictive hormone…whenever our brains squirt it out, the body goes “this is good!  I want more!” …it happens when we hear a great song….it happens with certain drugs and alcohol, which is the basis of addiction…and it happens with an orgasm…

Once you’re inside this bubble, you may find things rather permissive…as long as you’re producing, people will look the other way…there’s no one to tell you “no”…and it doesn’t take long for some people to get lost in this world, coming to believe that normal rules of polite society don’t apply….you’re special, meaning that you can do anything…

That’s when your judgement starts to become suspect…and that’s when things start to get strange…how strange?...well…

Welcome to a show all about rock’n’roll and weird tales of sex.

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Going on tour is hard…you’re away from home for months at a time…there’s little sleep, bad food, too many drugs, a surfeit of alcohol, late nights, temptations into bad behavior, crazy people, and that bass player who refuses to wash his feet, probably because he’s on his phone moaning to his girlfriend about how miserable he is…

All that occupies about 22 hours of the day…the best times come when you’re at the venue…there’s the excitement of the lead-up, the after-show satisfaction, and in between, the gig itself…

But every show is different…a different city…a different place to sleep…vans, buses, and, if you’re lucky, airplanes…for that time on the road, your sanctuary becomes the dressing room, the one place over which you have some measure of control—if you know what you’re doing…

This brings me to the concert rider, the part of the contract with the promoter that specifies what an act has to be provided with before, during, and after a show…

Once the band arrives, the road manager is the point-person…he or she has to make sure the promoter adheres to the terms of the rider…

Most of the details are pretty mundane because they’re basically logistical…the times of the load-in and load-out…electrical requirements and the number of local electricians required to make them happen…how many forklifts and drivers are needed to move gear around…catering for the crew…parking for the tour buses…how merch sales are going to work…that kind of thing…

Where things get interesting are the artist’s requirements, the things they need backstage to ensure they’re in a good headspace to play a great show…mess up the rider and the promoter runs the risk of having a pouty, petulant, and otherwise pissed off performance…

And i get it…if you’re an artist and you don’t get what you need before a gig, then you’re going to feel disrespected…

Coming up with a list of requests that can be enforced night after night, venue after venue, city after city, and country after country is a delicate and essential thing…and let’s just say that some bands are better than others at this sort of thing…

Welcome to the wild work of the backstage rider…

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Why does music move us so deeply...even when we don’t hear it?

From brain scans lighting up with musical memories to how songs can fight loneliness, boost productivity, and even repel mosquitoes, this episode dives into the strange science behind sound with another exploration into the medical mysteries of music.

🧠 Discover:

Why music survives memory loss in Alzheimer’s

📲 Listen now wherever you get your podcasts🔗 ajournalofmusicalthings.com

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There are plenty of unexplained things in the world of music…these are things that we often don’t even question…why do we do these things?...what is this called that?...who came up with that idea?

Let’s deal with some of that.

This is another episode of something I call “The Rock Explainer”.

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Taj Khyber Rowland knows he’s not who people think he is but he can’t quite remember how his life went so off course.

He decides to spool backwards, to his younger self. A daredevil seven year old Chellamuthu, living happily, but in abject poverty, with his large family in rural India.

But when Chellamuthu disobeys his mother and goes to play at the bus station, he’s persuaded to board a bus with some bigger boys.

He’s kidnapped. And there’s no going back.

Contact:

Facebook: ⁠⁠@BlanchardHouseStories⁠⁠

Instagram: ⁠⁠@BlanchardHouseStories⁠⁠

X (formerly Twitter): ⁠⁠@BlanchardTweets⁠⁠

Blanchard House website: ⁠⁠blanchard-house.com⁠

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This episode is about giving credit where credit is due. Specifically to musicians who were so far ahead of their time that the public and the industry just didn’t get it, and as a result, they were ignored, shunned, unrewarded, or otherwise omitted from music history.

Most of these names might be new to you, but that’s not your fault…the music world just dropped the ball on these people… but that’s just wrong…they just happened to offer something when we weren’t quite ready for it…in other words, they peaked too soon…let me show you what I mean.

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This is the second half at a look at the stories behind some of the most iconic album covers of all time…on part one, we looked at the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, Depeche Mode, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Beastie Boys, Alice In Chains, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Smashing Pumpkins, all in chronological order, ending in 1993.

 Now we’re going to pick things up in 1994.

This is part two of a show that looks at some of the most iconic-looking albums in history, along with some secret stories they contain.

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This is going to be a very visual program, which may be a bit of a challenge because you’re either listening to this as a radio show or podcast…so i need to work with me on this…

 Vinyl is back in a way that no one could have ever predicted…in countries like Canada, the US, the UK, Australia, and beyond, vinyl is once again outselling CDs…and a surprising number of people are buying vinyl even if they don’t have a turntable… 

What’s the point of that? ...simple…vinyl is a tangible and physical manifestation and representation of the music…it is something you own, something that resides with you, and no matter what happens, it is yours… 

Many fans stream the music while holding the vinyl in their hands…that’s the best of both worlds…the vinyl never gets damaged, but you get to hear the music just the same…

And the attraction is the same as it ever was…liner notes, lyric sheets—and the artwork…

For a while, we were in real danger of seeing the glories of album artwork disappear…first, it was shrunk down to cd-sized…then with sometime like iTunes, you got a little postage-same image…and with streaming, you get almost nothing when it comes to something that visually embodies all the blood, sweat, tears, talent, and inspiration that went into making that album… 

So here on the radio (or the podcast), I’m going to ask you to conjure up images of these album covers in your mind…then you can go back to your vinyl library and take a look…

We’re revisiting album artwork on this episode of “The Ongoing History of New Music” with a look at the stories behind some iconic covers…and after this, you may not look at some of your albums the same way again…

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I’ve always been fascinated with recording studios…the atmosphere, the equipment, the musical gear, the slight scent of ozone from all the electricity running through the circuits.

 Yeah, you can make very good records at home, but there’s

This time, I’ve compiled a list of some of the best-known Oasis songs, and we’re about to go deep into how they were created.

When we’re done, you won’t listen to any of them the same way again.

This is "In the Studio with Oasis"

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This program begins with an advisory…no, no—not that kind…there’s nothing dirty or obscene or controversially political coming up…it’s just that, well—what you’re about to hear is different…very different…and I mean really different.

There are thousands of music genres out there…but on this program, we’re going to look at something special…it’s a genre known as “outsider music”

You know the kid at school who seemed to live a little beyond the status quo?... He or she wasn’t quite normal…and i do not mean that in any judgmental or pejorative way…they just marched to their own beat…whatever was going on inside their head may have been a little hard to grasp.

Some of these people may have felt a need to express themselves artistically…and the art that came out didn’t exactly fit anywhere…if it was music, it wasn’t the sort of music other people were making.

Outsider musicians are often self-taught…they’re perhaps a little naïve when it comes to the conventions of music and how it is performed…traditions, music theory, and experience mean nothing to them…they don’t care what other people think because they believe in themselves so much…for them, it’s all about the sheer joy of music.

No two outsider musicians sound alike…some have intellectual disabilities or suffer from some kind of mental illness (like schizophrenia, for example), while others are just a little left-of-centre when it comes to their outlook on reality, something that comes through in their music.

But all outsider musicians have something in common…there’s often a child-like quality to what they create…and they are motivated by the sheer joy of making music—and damn what other people may think.

If we look at them through that lens, their spirit is to be admired—even if the music is a little, uh, challenging.

Now that you’ve been warned and I’ve explained myself, let’s dive deeper into the fascinating world of outsider music…prepare yourself.

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