Ongoing History of New Music

By 102.1 the Edge

Society & Culture History Music

What's Ongoing History of New Music about?

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.

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Catching Up With Twenty One...

05.22.2019

Not all bands hit it out of the park right away…they need a few albums and a couple of long tours before things start to fall into place… Take the Red Hot Chili Peppers, for example…their career really didn’t start ...

Ongoing History of New Music episodes:

05.22.2019 Catching Up With Twenty One Pilots Not all bands hit it out of the park right away…they need a few albums and a couple of long tours before things start to fall into place… Take the Red Hot Chili Peppers, for example…their career really didn’t start ...
05.15.2019 Rise and Fall of the CD On the afternoon of October 1, 1982, Sony introduced a new home stereo gizmo… it was the world’s first compact disc player… they called it the CDP-101… Weird name, but if you take it apart, it makes sense…”CDP” stands for ...
05.08.2019 Musical Offspring It runs in the family…like father, like son (or mother like daughter…or some variation of that)…the apple never falls far from the tree… All these sayings have something to do with some sort of hereditary characteristics or learned abilities passed ...
05.01.2019 Music Industry Glossary: Part 2 Every industry has its own language…think about what it’s like to be a doctor and all the terms and phrases you must learn if you’re going to communicate with your patients and other medical professionals…what’s the difference between and otolanryingolist ...
04.29.2019 Legendary Gigs Maybe it was the first time you saw your favourite musical. Maybe they played a set list that you thought was perfection. Maybe you were front and centre and the singer crowd surfed right over your head! So sure...an absolutely ...
04.23.2019 Music Industry Glossary: Part 1 I’m really bad with jargon…I hate it…jargon is by its very nature exclusive…if you don’t know the language, don’t know the codes, don’t know the usage rules, then you’re locked out of the discussion… I remember one financial guy who ...
04.21.2019 Nine Inch Nails and "Year Zero" Back in 2007, Trent Reznor did something a little different with the release of "Year Zero". He essentially created a game...a mystery...a unique marketing campaign. This was an incredibly complex campaign with clues buried all over the world. Basically all ...
04.17.2019 Alexisonfire - In Their Own Words Podcast A band is like a plant…stay with me on this…like a plant, a band grows from seeds to maturity, bursts for with new seeds and then eventually withers and dies…it’s the cycle of life, you know?... But like plants (or ...
04.15.2019 Murder! There are a lot of songs about Murder...but what about actual events where there are real killings involving real personalities in music? Well we've gathered a bunch. Actions are motivated by jealousy or sex or fear or revenge or anger...or ...
04.08.2019 Kurt Cobain: 25 Years Later There was nothing particular special about April 8, 1994…I came to work as usual, saw the usual people, and prepared for my radio show in the usual way…I made note that the Toronto Blue Jays were playing a sold-out home ...
04.03.2019 Moonlighting Just because you're a successful musician or are in a band doesn't mean you don't want to try something else. Maybe you want to open up your own side business in something related to music. Maybe it's in a completely ...
03.31.2019 Matt Good: In His Own Words - Part 2 Like we said before, from time to time we have the opportunity to get a band or a musician into a studio and have them walk us through their career. What comes out of these interviews can be honest and ...
03.27.2019 Matt Good: In His Own Words - Part 1 From time to time we have the opportunity to get a band or a musician into a studio and have them walk us through their career. What comes out of these interviews can be honest and pure conversations about the ...
03.25.2019 New Rock Hair Maybe this isn't a topic you thought about in New Rock, but it's time for us to take a look at New Rock Hair. Seriously... We've dug back into the archives and found this one from 2006 where we have ...
03.20.2019 The 00s Part 5: Technology Let’s make a list of all the things we did not have on January 1, 2000…ready?...iTunes, iPods, iPhones…YouTube, Facebook, Twitter…Snapchat, Spotify, smartphones… There was no Netflix (at least as we know it now)…no MySpace…no Instagram Well, what didwe have?...dial-up modems…Windows ...
03.14.2019 Ongoing History Introduces you to Crime Beat Crime Beat” is a new investigative podcast series hosted by Crime Reporter Nancy Hixt. She's been covering cases for over the past 20 years and knows her hometown by the crime scenes she's been to. Journey deep inside some of ...
03.13.2019 The 00s Part 4: Variety Returns Music is always evolving, mutating, and modifying itself…enough people may agree on a certain direction for a new sound to become a new sub-genre…and in time, sub-sub-genres may spring from that offshoot, multiplying things even more… Think about it…in the ...
03.11.2019 25 Random Facts About Depeche Mode They've been around since the early 80's and still recording and touring. It's really incredible considering how self-destructive Depeche Mode has been over that time. Really....it is amazing what has happened to them over the years. And that includes the ...
03.06.2019 The 00's Part 3: The Return of Rock In times of crisis, we start to look for a leader, someone who can get us out of trouble…this is a trope of every comic book universe movie and half all the action-adventure stuff… But it’s true…when things are bad, ...
02.27.2019 The 00's Part 2: The Indie Revolution At the end of the 90s, rock music was deep in the doldrums…fans were genuinely worried for its future…and it did look bleak, especially in contrast to how exciting things had been earlier in the decade… But in ’98 and ...
02.20.2019 The 00's Part 1: The Sad State of Rock How long should we wait before we write the history of a decade?...we can write things down as they happen, but that’s only the first draft…time has to pass before we can wrap our heads around exactly what happened, what ...
02.13.2019 A Deep Dive Into Vinyl Trivia There are people who still believe that the resurrection of vinyl is a fad, a passing trend, something of which people will tire and we’ll all move on… This, frankly, is insanity…total insanity… Vinyl LP sales have been going up ...
02.06.2019 Arkells - In Their Own Words: Part 2 When you’re in a band and things begin to take off, life starts to move pretty fast…days start to blur as you move from gig to the studio, from the studio to the van, and back from gig to gig… ...
02.04.2019 Ongoing History Introduces you to: Russia Rising “Russia Rising” is a new investigative podcast series hosted by Jeff Semple, the former Europe Bureau Chief for Global News. This series hopes to unravel the giant mystery behind Putin’s Russia with the help of those who know her best ...
01.30.2019 Arkells - In Their Own Words: Part 1 When you’re in a band, you want to make sure the public record is correct…but you’re often at the mercy of someone else when it comes to creating that record… First, there’s your publicist and anyone at your record label ...
01.28.2019 The 500th Show! Every once in a while we will pull a show from the vast Ongoing History of New Music Archives that is a bit of a time capsule. It captures a moment in time that seems somewhat forgotten...distant...calmer... This show takes ...
01.23.2019 Modern Guitar Heroes 2: The Women It’s been a rough decade for the electric guitar…sales of new instruments have dropped by a third, from 1.5 million globally to around just one million… Why?...generations brought up on electronics are opting out of creating music with traditional instruments ...
01.16.2019 Modern Guitar Heroes: The Men What is a guitar hero?...yes, yes, it’s a video game that vaguely simulates playing a real guitar…what else?... Yes, yes, it means someone who can rock the “expert level” at guitar hero, the video game…but before that, it meant something ...
01.14.2019 You're Fired! Chances are, at some point in your life you are going to lose your job. If you're lucky it will be a layoff situation and you'll get some sort of severance or package. But it's possible that something happens that ...
01.10.2019 History of Concert Sound Ever been to a concert and wondered "How do they make all of this work?". "How have I not gone deaf?" or "Why does the dude on stage wearing what looks like a pair of ear-buds?" Well we're here to ...
01.06.2019 What’s with Florence + the Machine? One of my favourite movie lines of all time comes from a 1982 Peter O’Toole film called “My Favorite Year”… O’Toole plays a movie idol named Alan Swann who is reduced to appearing on a variety tv show of the ...
12.31.2018 Kings of Leon in Their Own Words: Part 2 This is the second part of our "In Their Own Words" conversation with all four members of the Kings of Leon: Caleb, Nathan, Jared, and Matthew Folllowill. It's the conclusion of ours in depth and honest interview with the band ...
12.30.2018 Kings of Leon in Their Own Words: Part 1 Back in 2009, we sat down with all four member of the Kings of Leon: Caleb, Nathan, Jared, and Matthew Folllowill. What followed was a very in depth and honest interview that told their story from their very early days ...
12.24.2018 10 Things That Really Annoy Me I'm a normally pretty reserved person, but like anyone else there are some things that really, really bug me: drivers who don't use their turn signal, people who use the word "irregardless", anti-vaxers, creationists, email with no subject line, high-end ...
12.19.2018 60 Mind-Blowing Facts in 60 Minutes: 4th Edition One of the occupational hazards of my job is I run across all kinds of facts, bits of data, and pieces of knowledge that don’t have any immediate practical application… For example, I ran across this piece of royal etiquette…the ...
12.16.2018 Bush: The Post-CD Band Featuring Gavin Rossdale Once upon a time, not that long ago and in a land not that far away, musicians—not all, but some—could become very, very rich… Their riches came by selling pieces of plastic to those who enjoyed their music…those pieces of ...
12.12.2018 Radiohead - A History: Part 3 When you sign your first record deal, it’s usually for around seven albums…theoretically; this is to protect both sides… First, it offers the artist a degree of security…it gives the artist a few records to develop and mature so if ...
12.05.2018 Radiohead - A History: Part 2 When you think about it, it’s quite an accomplishment to become a one-hit-wonder...sure, your career is essentially over after one song–but hey, at least you made it that far...think about all the bands who have worked for years and years ...
12.03.2018 Alt Rock Shrines \| From the Archives When I say the word "Shrine"...what comes to mind? Lords? A temple in the Himalaya’s? Something secular...like a war memorial? They could be something makeshift like flowers placed on the side of the road where someone died. Shrines appear in ...
11.28.2018 Radiohead - A History: Part 1 Is it just me or has there been an uptick in the number of one-hit-wonders over the past couple of years?...think about all the hot bands who have had just one good album–or even just one good song–before they’re forgotten... ...
11.23.2018 Death as a Career Move \| From the Archives Here's the thing. As a musician you can spend thousands and thousands of hours, days, weeks working to be a success. You know, make enough money to pay the bills, have a living, and make a career...provide for yourself and ...
11.20.2018 Lost CanRock Bands of the 90s: Part 2 Before 1971, there really wasn’t much of a Canadian music industry…sure, there were record labels and recording studios and promoters and agents, but we didn’t have what you’d call a “first-world” industry… Canada was a backwater, a place where the ...
11.13.2018 Lost CanRock Bands of the '90s: Part 1 If you came of age musically in Canada in the 1990s, you’ll remember that it was an extraordinary time…there was this mass embracing of homegrown music…it was part nationalism and part patriotism, but it was also something else… A vast ...
11.07.2018 Indigenous Alternative Over the last decade, there has been some very, very long overdue attempts at reconciliation with the First Nations and Indigenous Peoples of North America…there’s still a long, long way to go, but at least the process as begun… The ...
11.01.2018 Groups That Changed Their Front-Person and Survived Building and maintaining a band is a lot like building and maintaining a sports team…you struggle and wheel-and-deal and trade and sometimes steal to put together just the right lineup… And it’s not just sound and talent…it’s chemistry…leadership…stamina…all those intangible ...
10.30.2018 Good Goth: Part 2 \| From the Archives Seeing as it's the time of the year when many people explore their inner Goth, we thought we'd dig deep into the Ongoing History archieves and pull out our 2 part series on Goth. This is the second part of ...
10.29.2018 Good Goth: Part 1 \| From the Archives Seeing as it's the time of the year when many people explore their inner Goth, we thought we'd dig deep into the Ongoing History archieves and pull out our 2 part series on Goth. We examine it in the Alt-Rock ...
10.24.2018 It's A Family Affair Music is one of those things that can bring families together…and sometimes, that togetherness grows into a business… The BeeGees had the three Gibb brothers…baby brother Andy Gibb was also part of that universe for a while… Then there’s The ...
10.22.2018 Rock Star Kids \| From the Archives Being a kid of a rock star isn't the easiest life to live. The celebrity, the expectations to be like your dad or mom who's a famous rock star. Everyone watching you to make a mistake. But there are times ...
10.17.2018 9 Great Alt-Rock Cover Songs There’s just something fun about learning to play one of your favourite songs for yourself…you know, learning the lyrics, figuring out the chords and the rhythm and deconstructing all the constituent parts… Then you get deeper…you begin to appreciate how ...

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