Remember that time The Tragically Hip played CBGB?
While The Tragically Hip band could attract tens of thousands to gigs in Canada by the early 90s, they were
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Music History
Passing the torch: The musical offspring of famous rock stars
[This is my weekly column for GlobalNews.ca. Goes nicely, too, with a recent episode of my Ongoing History radio show.
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This is the earliest known footage of REM
REM’s first gig was in a deconsecrated church in Athens, Georgia, on April 5, 1980. That gig was cobbled together
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This guy plays us through the history of metal in 12 minutes
How did metal evolve over the decades? Multi-instrumentalist Andrea Boccarusso takes us through its history, explaining a few things along
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Cool! Footage of Joey Ramone BEFORE he was in The Ramones
Before the Ramones, Jeff Hyman of Queens, New York–later known as Joey Ramone–was in a band called Sniper. Reader Adam
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Top 10 reasons Ronnie Spector was the most badass female pop singer of all time
Ronnie Spector died this week at the age of 78 after a short battle with cancer, passing away in the
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Here’s a trailer for the upcoming documentary on Lowest of the Low
There were fewer indie bands bigger than Toronto’s Lowest of the Low back in the 90s. At a time when
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Michael Lang, founder of Woodstock, dead at 77.
Michael Lang was still in his twenties when he promoted Woodstock back in 1969. Not bad for something that became
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The Real Story Behind The Pogues “Fairytale of New York”
One of the most beloved modern Christmas songs of all time is “Fairytale of New York” from the Pogues with a guest appearance from the late Kirsty MacColl–even though it’s really not about Christmas at all.
The song was born sometime in 1985 when Jem Finer, the Pogues’ banjo player, started messing about with an idea. He showed it to singer Shane McGowan who like it but didn’t really know what to do with it.
For the next two years, Jem and Shane struggled with the song. Coming up with the lyrics was especially difficult. The original idea was to tell the story of a sailor heading to distant seas, but that didn’t work. The song was abandoned.
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RIP Mike Nesmith of The Monkees and the man who named The Tragically Hip
You’ll read all kinds of obituaries about Mike Nesmith, the brainiest of The Monkees, who died this week of natural
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The Great Beastie Boys prank
Beastie Boys fans know this story–it’s been around for a while–but the beauty of the internet is that you can
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