Ongoing History of New Music

It's another trip back into the Ongoing History vault to find this episode all about things you many not have known about some of your favourite Alt-Rock musicians.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This time, we take a trip way back into the Ongoing History vault and dig out a show from April of 2000.What follows is the story of the trials and tribulations of the early days of Nine Inch Nails, and up to the release of the Broken/Fixed EP's. And a lot of this story is told by Trent himself. These are the deep, dark secrets of the early days of Nine Inch Nails. Learn more about your ad choices...

When a band forms, there’s little expectation that this could be a long-term endeavour...I mean, being a professional musician is hardly a sure thing...so many things could go wrong... But sometimes, a group will gain a little bit of traction...suddenly, a year passes and things are still happening...then two...then five...then ten...and if things are just right when it comes to the music and the...

Music is one of the greatest gifts the universe has bestowed on humanity...it provides so much joy and comfort and inspiration and enjoyment and motivation... It’s used in ritual and worship...and it allows us to communicate when words fail us... Every culture we’ve ever known has had music...an existence without music?...inconceivable... But like everything in this life, even the best things can...

One of the things that makes rock great is the energy and the power that comes with the music..and depending where you go, that energy and power varies from place to place... If you’re looking to exorcise a little aggression and anger and frustration, you have several choices...there are various flavours of metal that can serve your purpose, ranging from the melodic (Metallica’s “Enter Sandman,” f...

It’s never too late to follow your dreams…here are a few inspiration examples… Anna Mary Robertson was born in New York in 1860…for years, she worked as a housekeeper before moving to farm work with her husband, Thomas Moses…they had ten children… When Thomas died, Anna needed something to occupy her time, so she took up painting…she was 78 years old…Anna became known as “Grandma Moses” and is one...

When someone in your band decides to leave, gets fired, or heaven forbid, dies, you have a problem…this is an issue if any member leaves, but if we’re talking about your singer, that’s a hurt on an entirely different level… Your front person is an integral part of your sound…it’s the voice of your music…and there is nothing important to your music than its voice… It gets worse, too…your front pers...

I get a lot of email from young musicians looking for advice…they all ask pretty much the same questions: how to do I get more people to know about my music?...how do I get them to listen to my music?...how do I get my songs on the radio?...how do I get a record deal?...listen, if I had the definitive “silver bullet” answers to any of these questions, I’d not only be rich, I’d be worshipped as a G...

Back in 2014, I was invited to the foo fighters headquarters...this is 606 studios, the band’s hangout and nerve centre in Van Nuys, California...I was there to talk about the new album and TV series, “Sonic Highways”... I got there before anyone from the band arrived...first to roll up was Taylor Hawkins...he was driving the same beat-up 1986 Toyota 4 x 4 pick-up truck that he bought for $400 whe...

We’re thrilled to share a special preview of the Broken Record podcast from Pushkin Industries. In honor of the Red Hot Chili Peppers new album, Unlimited Love, the band members sit with their legendary producer Rick Rubin to share exclusive insights about the band’s dynamic. In this preview,  Rick, John, and Anthony discuss John rejoining the band after a 10 year hiatus and how right it felt to b...

I’m going to explain why you might get frustrated at spellcheck on your phone or computer…and the answer has to do with a guy named Noah… no, not that Noah from the bible with the ark…another one… Noah was annoyed…as a proud new American, he believed that his new country needed to set itself apart from its former colonial masters in every way possible so they new nation could truly be different an...

It’s hard being in a band…all that time close together, day and night, in cramped vans and crappy dressing rooms…record company issues, personal issues, personnel problems and the general fragile state of the human condition…it’s no wonder so many groups break up...after a while, it’s just too much trouble. But there are exceptions, bands that somehow manage to stay together in the same form forev...

Artists make art because they have it…there’s something in their hearts that forces them to turn what they feel inside into something the rest of us can see and hear and feel ourselves… It supposed to be this pure thing…the pursuit of beauty for beauty’s sake…undistilled human emotion designed to create a reaction, to spread a profound messages, to make the universe a better and wiser and more joy...

I’ve done hundreds of interviews with individual artists over the year…it’s relatively easy...all you have to do is get one person in a room, turn on the recording devices and you’re set… When it comes to interviewing a band, you’re lucky to get two members in the same place and the same time…  But getting every member of a band in the same place at the same time for an interview is next to imposs...

One of the worst insults you can throw at an artist is to accuse them of “selling out”…the most basic definition is when the pursuit of money compromises, corrupts or otherwise interrupts the pursuit truth and beauty and all the purity and goodness that is supposed to flow from art… But that’s an awfully broad definition which can be applied in a billion different highly subjective ways…at one ext...

The best way to construct a profile on an artist is to round up everyone together, put them in a studio and get them to tell their story themselves… But that can be difficult, especially with a band…beyond touring and recording schedules, everyone has their own lives and may even live in different cities…putting everyone in the same place could be impossible… It took a while, but we did it…i have...

In the days before Covid, I was always on the road…if it wasn’t a music conference in Singapore, it was an interview in London, the Juno’s in—wherever, or a concert in Los Angeles…this means I have seen more than my share of hotel rooms—everything from five-star luxury spots to sub-one-star establishments that come with a complimentary dead hooker under the bed… This means I’ve developed a certain...

There are some people who just can’t get along…it could be the result of politics, religion, philophies, property, honour, a personal slight, a perceived insult, or—well, a million things, really… The most famous feud in history might be the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s who fought each other along the border between Kentucky and West Virginia in the late 1800s…it started over a hog…did it belong to...

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 answer those questions and more as we delve deep into the history of concert sound... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In assessing popular music in the last half of the 20th century, rock music was a massive cultural phenomenon…initially driven by young baby boomers, rock grew bigger and stronger, starting in the middle 60s, eclipsing all other genres…and central to this conquest was the electric guitar… That sound, with all its power and distortion and infinitely diverse tonalities, can still drive music fans in...

For centuries, music was nice and clean…while different instruments gave notes different timbres, the frequencies of those notes was expected to be clear and pure…yes, you could add a little umph by playing fortissimo, but the dogma was “let’s not overdo it”… But sometimes the situation called for overdoing things…banging a piano turns a melody and a beat into some stompin’ boogie-woogie…a raspy,...

There are few instruments more powerful than the electric guitar…when the first primitive models appeared in the 1920s, no one gave them much thought…the electric guitar was brand new, unproven, and completely lacking in any of the kinds of traditions and gravitas enjoyed by the piano, the violin, or any number of brass instruments… Besides, unlike all the other musical instruments in use, these r...

The human body is a remarkably good piece of construction…it has its quirks and shortcomings, but for the most part is a pretty cool thing: functional, durable, and to other humans, attractive… But there’s always room for improvements and modifications and decorations…archeologists have found mummified remains that are thousands and thousands of years old that’s sport tattoos… There’s a guy named...

We’ve all heard the stories about where punk came from…the New York Dolls and a few other bands start playing in a crappy area of New York that attracted musicians, artists, and degenerates with low rent… This leads to the opening of CBGB, a club that becomes the centre of a music scene that gave a home to bands like television, Blondie, The Talking Heads, The Heartbreakers, and, most importantly,...

Whether we want to admit it or not, each of us is product of our parents…we are like mom and/or dad…and that may manifest itself in different ways… Maybe one of them was a great cook and that’s led to a life-long love of food…maybe they introduced to travel and now you spend all your extra money on airfare…or maybe one of them had some kind of craft that you gravitated towards…carpenter, knitting,...