1976 - The Birth Year of Alt-Rock - Part 1
1976 wasn't just another year in music. It marked the birth of punk rock and launched alternative culture as we know it. From the gritty sta...
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Ongoing History of New Music
Canada’s longest running radio documentary. Since its debut in February 1993, hundreds and hundreds of shows have aired in Toronto, across Canada and through the US. (There’s been a lot of b...
Episodes
20 of 551 episodesA Timeline of Technological Advances in Music
Ever wonder which pieces of technology changed music forever? From Thomas Edison’s phonograph and the invention of the microphone to the Wal...
The One-Hit Wonders Follow-up Show
Think we were done with alt-rock one-hit wonders? Not quite. After our original deep dive into the biggest alternative one-hit wonders since...
The Story of Trip-Hop
Trip-hop was one of the coolest sounds of the 1990s, blending hip-hop beats, dub, soul, and moody atmospheres into something completely new....
The History of Band T-Shirts
Most of us have at least one band T-shirt stuffed in a drawer or hanging in a closet. Maybe it's a concert souvenir, a vintage find, or a sh...
The Long Strange Trip of John Frusciante - Part 2
After surviving some of the darkest years of his life, John Frusciante returned to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and helped create some of the b...
The Long Strange Trip of John Frusciante - Part 1
John Frusciante might just be rock’s ultimate survivor. So let's trace the wild, unpredictable journey of the Red Hot Chili Peppers guitaris...
Mind-Blowing Facts about Music, The Brain and the Body
What happens when music meets neuroscience? This time, we take a fascinating trip inside the human brain to explore why music can make us da...
The History of Pop Punk - Part 2
Pop-punk is one of those musical contradictions that somehow makes perfect sense. Punk was supposed to be loud, fast, and rebellious. Pop wa...
The History of Pop Punk - Part 1
Punk rock comes in a lot of different flavours, but few have had the impact of pop-punk. In Part One of this series, we dig into how a genre...
The Last Moments Of Part 2
When someone dies, our first reaction is disbelief...we’re stunned...that’s immediately followed by a need to know what happened...how?...wh...
The Last Moments Of Part 1
Ever wonder what really happened in the final hours of some of music's biggest stars? This time, I want to retrace the final hours and days...
The Weird History of Concert Tickets Part 2
In part two of our series, we continue to figure out why buying concert tickets has become one of the most frustrating consumer experiences…...
The Weird History of Concert Tickets Part 1
Buying a concert ticket should be simple and easy...but has it ever been? In this two-part series, we're going to try to unpack the surprisi...
Key Alt-Rock Movie Soundtracks
Movie soundtracks once shaped the direction of popular music...and nowhere was that more true than in alternative rock. This week, we go bac...
The Roots of the CanRock Explosion of the 90s
There was a time when Canadians didn’t believe in Canadian music...unless someone else told us it was good first. To celebrate Canada Day, w...
Late Bloomers
Rock music is supposed to belong to the young...but history tells us a different story. This time, we look at artists who refused to quit, e...
18 Bands Who Changed Lead Singers
What happens when a band loses its lead singer? Usually, it’s the end...but not always. In this episode, we explore 18 bands that survived.....
The History of Distortion and Feedback
Distortion was once considered a mistake...now it’s a defining force in modern music. This episode explores how broken gear, happy accidents...
The Golden Age of Synths, as told by OMD
This week, we dive into the Golden Age of Synthesizers, the period from the mid‑’70s to the mid‑’80s when synths became smaller, cheaper, an...