Episode Transcript
Transcripts are displayed as originally observed. Some content, including advertisements may have changed.
Use Ctrl + F to search
0:00
Hey, it's Alan and I just wanted to
0:02
let you know that you can now listen
0:04
to the ongoing history of new music early
0:06
and ad-free on Amazon Music included with Prime.
0:09
Hi, I'm Alan Cross and for the next
0:11
few weeks of the podcast, we're going to
0:13
dive deep into the ongoing history archives. There
0:16
are more than a thousand shows in there
0:19
and many of these programs have not been
0:21
heard for years. So
0:23
welcome to an ongoing history of new music
0:25
archives podcast with a series called the
0:27
top 100 moments in new rock. Now
0:30
bear in mind that these shows originally
0:32
aired in the spring of 2004, but we thought
0:37
it might be fun to hear where we've been,
0:39
how things used to be and
0:41
how much everything has changed since. We
0:44
hope you enjoy this look back in time. This
0:47
is the sound of history. The
0:52
councils, they ban my concepts and
0:54
they take my money. I
0:57
can't help but have a soft spot for Ziggy's Darnest,
1:00
not that I'd ever want to put on a game,
1:03
but it certainly was sort of fun at the time.
1:07
Apparently we've been told that we've got to
1:09
stop now and we have to go because
1:11
there's some trouble outside. And
1:16
then the kid through this last door and there's this
1:18
guy laying here with a shotgun laying on his chest
1:21
and blood running out of his ear. This
1:24
is another special project of the ongoing
1:26
history of new music. The
1:29
100 greatest new rock moments
1:31
ever. Part five.
1:35
This is the ongoing history of
1:37
new music podcast with Alan Cross.
1:42
Hi there and welcome to part five of a
1:44
10 part series in the greatest moments in the
1:46
history of new rock. I'm Alan Cross. These
1:48
shows are about the big things and
1:50
the small things and the weird
1:53
things that have changed the development and evolution of
1:55
this music. It could be a tiny
1:57
nuance kind of thing that eventually sends things spinning out
1:59
of control. I mean, you've heard about
2:01
chaos theory, right? How
2:04
about the butterfly effect? Okay,
2:06
let me explain. It begins with
2:08
a meteorologist named Edward Lorenz, who ran
2:11
some equations through a computer and
2:13
noticed that tiny, tiny deviations in
2:15
his numbers eventually led to unimaginably
2:17
large changes in the outcome, making
2:20
it pretty much impossible to predict just about
2:22
anything. This is where the
2:24
idea of a butterfly flopping its wings comes in. As
2:27
it flits about a flower in, let's
2:29
say, Northern Ontario, those little wings produce
2:31
a tiny change in the atmosphere, a
2:33
little tiny vortices. That
2:36
sets up a cascading series of changes, which
2:38
eventually add up and spread
2:40
around the planet leading to, or
2:42
so this theory goes, a cyclone
2:44
in Indonesia. Or that
2:46
flapping may stop that cyclone from happening. We'll
2:49
never know because the weather is, well,
2:51
it's chaotic. One line
2:54
is that it's never possible to predict the future
2:56
with any kind of certainty because you can never
2:58
take into account everything that might affect any given
3:00
outcome. Moment number 60 is
3:02
a lot like the butterfly effect. Lakes
3:04
McNeil was a fan of some of the cool underground
3:07
music that was happening around New York in the middle
3:09
of 1970s. His favorite band
3:11
of them all was The Dictators, and he
3:13
wanted to come up with an excuse to hang out with him.
3:16
And his solution was to start a fanzine, and
3:18
that way he'd have a legitimate reason to meet
3:20
and interview the band. Or better yet,
3:22
it might be a way to get into shows free and maybe
3:24
get to drink for free too. So
3:27
he and a buddy got to work, and their
3:29
first choice for the name of their fanzine was
3:31
Teenage News after an unreleased
3:33
song by the New York Dolls. But
3:35
then they figured that the name should have something to
3:37
do with The Dictators because after all, that
3:40
was the whole point of the zine, right? So
3:42
they picked up The Dictators' Go Girl
3:45
Crazy album, and they started staring at
3:47
it. And the artwork contains
3:49
a shot of the band and their buddies
3:51
inside a White Castle hamburger stand. Everybody
3:54
in the band was wearing their old style leather
3:56
motorcycle jackets, and they all looked like a bunch
3:58
of wise guy punks. from
4:00
the 1950s, like Fonzie, Unhappy
4:02
Days, or Marlon Brando and the Wild
4:04
One from 1953. So
4:07
that is when Legs and his
4:09
buddy decided to call the magazine Punk.
4:12
Now Punk turned out to be
4:14
a pretty hot fanzine amongst the underground music fans
4:16
in New York, thanks to features on performers like
4:18
The Dictators and Lou Reed and the Ramones. In
4:20
fact, Lou was on the front cover of the
4:22
first issue, which came out in January of And
4:26
I love the first editorial. This is how it went. Kill
4:28
yourself, jump off a cliff, drive
4:31
nails into your head, become a
4:33
robot and join the staff at
4:35
Disneyland, OD, anything. Just don't listen
4:37
to disco. Educate
4:39
yourself. Read Punk. Pretty
4:42
soon, anyone who was featured in the magazine was
4:44
being referred to as a punk
4:47
band. It was shorthand.
4:49
When someone asked what kind of music you like, you
4:52
could reply, I like groups that
4:54
they write about in Punk magazine. And
4:56
from there, it was just a quick step to saying
4:58
that you like punk music or punk rock. And
5:01
from there, well, it was just kind
5:03
of like the butterfly flopping its wings, if you know what I
5:05
mean. So let me play
5:07
you this. The group that inspired the modern
5:10
usage of the word punk when it came
5:12
to rock and roll. These are
5:14
the Dictators from 1975 with the next big thing. I
5:19
don't have to be here, you know. I don't have
5:21
to show up here. My best
5:23
financial holdings, I could have
5:25
been basking in the sun in Florida. This
5:28
is just a hobby for me. Nothing,
5:30
you hear? A hobby. I
5:32
sat them everywhere that I see. Does
5:36
you know maybe I'm the
5:38
next big thing? The
5:43
Rock Moment number 60, the origins of
5:45
the word punk as an adjective for
5:48
hard, fast, primitive rock. That
5:51
number 59 happened on live television. It was December
5:53
17th, 1977. The
5:56
Sex Pistols had been booked to appear on Saturday Night
5:58
Live that week. off
6:00
to their first ever North American tour, but then
6:02
they got nailed at immigration for improper
6:04
paperwork and with questions
6:07
about various criminal charges. They
6:10
couldn't make it. So in a panic, the
6:12
producers of Saturday Night Live booked this guy
6:14
named Elvis Costello and his band The Attractions.
6:17
You can play on the show, they said,
6:19
if you promise not to play that
6:21
song radio radio, because well, you see
6:23
NBC owns a lot of radio stations
6:25
and we can't have you trashing the
6:27
network with your song. Then
6:29
at first, Elvis said, okay, mate, whatever you say, I'll
6:31
do my British single, Less Than Zero. But
6:34
you got to think that Elvis had his
6:36
fingers crossed because that's not exactly what happened
6:39
that night. Call
6:47
and press the eyes, roll with the swats,
6:49
the good tattoo, there's a big cut to
6:51
it. I'm
6:55
sorry, ladies and gentlemen, there's no reason to do this song here.
7:09
Great New Rock Moment number 59,
7:11
the night Elvis Costello screwed the
7:13
producers of Saturday Night Live.
7:16
Moment number 58 is remembered as the day the
7:18
Clash screwed their fans. That's a bit
7:20
unfair, but you got to remember when this happened. Back
7:22
in the beginning, around 1976 and 1977, the Clash were seen as the most uncompromising and
7:28
the most ideologically pure of all the British
7:30
punk bands. If you looked at them
7:32
the right way, you could say that they were so socialist
7:34
that they were bordering on communist, but
7:37
then the unthinkable. The
7:39
Clash got in bed with
7:41
a major multinational corporation. The
7:44
date was January 26, 1977. That's
7:47
when the Clash signed a major record deal
7:49
with CBS. That was
7:51
bad enough for the faithful, but when they heard that the
7:53
deal was worth a hundred thousand pounds, more
7:55
than 75,000 pounds higher than
7:57
the other competing offer, everyone
7:59
started to think. started yelling, sell out. Now,
8:02
like I said, this was pretty unfair, especially
8:05
since the Sex Pistols were being cheered for
8:07
gouging multiple record labels for huge amounts of
8:09
cash. And the fans
8:11
weren't listening to the Clash's explanation. They maintained that
8:13
they were going to corrupt the music industry from
8:16
within, which they ended up doing,
8:18
by the way. But back in
8:20
January 1977, the howls of punk protests could
8:22
be heard all across the UK. The
8:25
day the Clash allegedly sold out,
8:28
January 26, 1977, New Rock Moment number 58. The
8:49
Clash, from their 1977 self-titled debut album. And when
8:51
we come back, we'll move through New Rock Moments
8:54
57 through 55, all of which have
8:57
something to do with the Sex Pistols. Back
9:00
in a sec. Hey,
9:03
I'm Don Wildman. And on American History
9:05
Hit, my expert guests and I journey
9:07
across the nation and through the years
9:09
to uncover the stories that have made
9:11
the United States. From first
9:13
flight to first ladies. From
9:16
stitching the star-spangled banner to striking
9:18
gold in California, to shooting for
9:20
the moon with Apollo. We've got you
9:22
covered. Catch new episodes of
9:24
American History Hit, a podcast by History
9:26
Hit, every Monday and Thursday wherever you
9:29
get your podcasts. History
9:33
has made this world of ours. I'd
9:35
like to tell you about my show. It's called Dan
9:37
Snow's History Hit. And on that show, you get a
9:40
daily dose of history and the stories
9:42
that really explain just about everything that's ever
9:44
happened. If you want to know
9:46
the origin stories of the cities we inhabit, what's
9:48
in our kitchen cupboards, why you've
9:50
always been drawn to dictators, the deep history that
9:52
explains what's going on, for example, in the Middle East,
9:55
well, we've got you covered. Get
9:57
a little bit smarter every day with Dan Snow's History Hit.
10:00
you get your podcasts. Welcome
10:30
back. This is part five of
10:32
the 100 Greatest Moments in New Rock. And the next three
10:45
events all involve the Sex Pistols in some
10:47
fashion. Number 57 will be familiar to
10:51
anyone who's ever seen the brilliant movie on the Manchester
10:53
music scene called 24 Hour Party People.
10:56
Early in the movie, we're told of and
10:58
shown a gig the Sex Pistols played at
11:00
the Lesser Free Trade Hall just after 7.30
11:03
on the night of Friday, June 4th, 1976. Even though
11:07
the tickets were just 50 pence, less than
11:09
50 people showed up, but those
11:11
who were there were inspired to do whatever
11:13
it was the Sex Pistols were doing. In
11:16
the audience that night were future members of the Buzzcocks
11:18
and the Pet Shop Boys and Joy Division and New
11:20
Order and a bunch of lesser bands that
11:22
would soon be making punk rock for England. Didn't
11:25
seem like much of the time, but this failed
11:28
money losing gig became
11:30
a turning point for English rock.
11:47
The Sex Pistols gig at the Lesser Free Trade Hall
11:50
in Manchester, June 4th, 1977. New Rock moment
11:53
number 57. If that
11:55
early show was memorable, so is the
11:57
Pistols last show in San Francisco. on
12:00
January 14th, 1978. The Pistols
12:03
American Tour had been a complete disaster. Audiences
12:05
were hostile. Sid Vicious kept getting so wasted
12:08
that he managed to get beat up by
12:10
his own bodyguard. Manager Malcolm
12:12
McLaren was a pain and everybody basically
12:14
hated each other. The whole
12:16
event was captured on film in the movie
12:18
The Great Rock and Roll Swindle. It shows
12:20
a band at the end of their rope
12:22
and literally ready to blow apart. In fact,
12:24
they were just hours from blowing apart. Someone,
12:28
somehow, had been cheated. And
12:31
Johnny Rodden had a pretty good idea, but who
12:33
the real victim was. In
12:58
the Disneyland in San Francisco, the
13:00
Sex Pistols played to the whole
13:03
world. It
13:06
wasn't a rock and roll party. It
13:08
was more like a dying horse that needed putting
13:10
out of its misery. We
13:13
raised that horse's head and choked the living
13:15
daylights out of it. The
13:28
Sex Pistols and their final show at the
13:30
Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. New
13:32
Rock Moment, number 56. All
13:35
right, so it really wasn't their last show, but it was the last time we'd
13:37
see them together for almost 18 years. And
13:39
it was the last time we'd see them with
13:41
Sid Vicious because 13 months later, he'd
13:44
be dead of a heroin overdose. Here's
13:46
one more Sex Pistols related moment, which brings us to number 55.
13:49
And it's not about the Pistols themselves, but about their manager.
13:52
Before Malcolm McLaren hooked up with the Pistols,
13:54
Hina's partner Vivian Westwood owned a clothing store
13:56
in the Chelsea area of London called Let
13:58
It Rock. specialized in
14:00
two things, bondage gear and sex toys, and
14:03
clothing for Teddy Boys, which was a fashion clique
14:05
in London. On a 1975 trip
14:07
to New York to show off their stuff at
14:09
a fashion fair, Malcolm took a side
14:12
trip to CBGBs to see what all the fuss was
14:14
about. And that's where he ran
14:16
into Richard Hell, the former bass player for
14:18
a group called Television and the
14:20
current bassist for The Heartbreakers. What
14:23
drew Malcolm to Richard was his sense of style,
14:25
or what Malcolm fought to be
14:28
Richard's sense of style. Because, well,
14:30
you see, Richard was actually so poor that he'd
14:32
wear his clothing until they literally fell apart. And
14:35
once they did that, he'd hold the ripped scraps
14:37
of cloth together with safety pins. And
14:39
Malcolm thought this was a grand fashion statement.
14:42
So he took the idea back with him
14:44
to England, and he and Vivian
14:46
started selling creations that were held together with things
14:48
like, you guessed it, safety
14:51
pins. Fledgling British
14:53
punks flocked to the store, which
14:55
was by now renamed sex. And
14:57
they started either buying this stuff or making their
15:00
own at home. After all, how tough
15:02
is it to tear up some clothes and stick everything together
15:04
with safety pins? And we all know how
15:06
that played out. Malcolm
15:08
McLaren's fashion encounter with Richard Hell,
15:11
New Rock Romel at number 55. New
15:14
Rock moment number 55, courtesy of
15:17
Richard Hell and Malcolm McLaren. Four
15:38
more moments for this installment, and when we come
15:40
back, we'll look at the beginnings of one of
15:42
the most infamous couplings in the history
15:44
of rock and roll. We're
15:47
almost at the halfway point on our look at the
15:49
top 100 moments in New Rock. And moment number 54
15:51
is the very beginning of the whole Kurt and Courtney
15:53
thing. Courtney Love first
15:55
saw Kurt Cobain when Nirvana played a
15:58
show at the Satiricon Club in
16:00
Portland, Oregon. The date was January 21, 1989.
16:02
They hooked up briefly when Kurt unceremoniously
16:06
helped himself to Courtney's picture of beer.
16:08
They talked a bit and afterwards Kurt
16:10
told friends, I thought she looked like
16:12
Nancy Spungen. She was Sid
16:14
Vicious's old girlfriend before somebody, maybe
16:17
Sid, killed her. Anyway, they talked
16:19
and Kurt gave her some Nirvana stickers
16:21
and from that point on Courtney had a
16:23
crush on Kurt. Courtney
16:25
was friends with Jennifer Finch of the band
16:27
L7, who was a former girlfriend of Dave
16:30
Grohl. And one day, Courtney told Dave that
16:32
she liked Kurt and Dave told Courtney that
16:34
Kurt kind of liked her. Kind of
16:37
sounds like high school, doesn't it? Anyway, that's
16:40
when she gave Dave a package to give
16:42
to Kurt. It was a bunch
16:44
of seashells and pine cones along with some miniature
16:46
teacups and a doll all jammed
16:48
into a box that was shaped like
16:50
a heart. On
16:52
May 29, 1991, one month
16:54
after Nirvana signed their major deal, Kurt
16:57
and Courtney hooked up again at a butthole
16:59
surfer show in Los Angeles. There
17:01
was instant attraction, especially after Courtney decided
17:03
to punch Kurt in the stomach. That
17:06
led to some wrestling and kicking and afterwards
17:08
they shared some drugs, Vicodin and high powered
17:11
cough syrup. And from that
17:13
point on, they were pretty much inseparable. And
17:16
we all know how that turned out. The
17:18
day Kurt met Courtney for the very first time
17:21
on January 21, 1989 in Portland, Oregon.
17:24
Kurt and Courtney hooked up for the very first
17:26
time New Rock
17:29
Moment number 54. Moment number 53 also has to do
17:31
with Nirvana. Before we joined the band, Dave Grohl was
17:33
part of
17:36
a group called Scream, but they broke
17:39
up in September 1990 right in the
17:41
middle of a tour when the band
17:43
was doing their band's solo. They were
17:45
all in the band, and they were all in the band.
17:47
And they were all in the band. And they were all
17:49
in the band. And they were all in the band. And
17:52
they were all in the band. And they were all in
17:54
the band. And they were right
17:57
in the band. The
18:00
bass player bailed because of girlfriend problems. This
18:03
left Dave stranded in Los Angeles and
18:05
desperate for a gig he called his
18:07
friend Buzz Osborne. Now, Buzz
18:09
was in a Seattle band called the Melvins
18:12
and Dave was hoping that he knew of
18:14
any openings for a drummer. Now
18:16
it just so happens that one of
18:19
Buzz's friends was having drummer
18:21
issues. He gave Dave the
18:23
bass player's phone number. Dave
18:25
made the call and was invited to come up.
18:27
So Dave packed all his drums into a big
18:29
cardboard box, grabbed his only bag of clothes and
18:32
headed up the coast to try out for this
18:34
weird little band called Nirvana. He
18:36
auditioned at the Dutchman rehearsal space in Seattle on September
18:38
25, 1990 and he got the
18:41
gig instantly. His first
18:43
gig with the band was at the North
18:45
Shore Surf Club in Olympia, Washington on October
18:47
11, 1990. Now,
18:50
all the pieces were in place. No
18:53
one knew it at the time, but Nirvana was
18:55
now on their way to becoming the biggest
18:57
rock band of the 1990s. The
19:20
day Dave Grohl unexpectedly got the gig
19:22
with this weird little band called Nirvana,
19:24
September 25, 1990. New
19:27
Rock Moment number 53. Moment
19:30
number 52 involves the internet. Webcasts
19:32
and streaming are no big deal these days, but back in
19:34
1994, this was the stuff of
19:37
science fiction. It seems
19:39
that the first ever internet only concert
19:41
was performed by a bunch of computer
19:44
engineers at Xerox earlier that year. They
19:46
were just a bunch of nerds who decided to
19:48
play a gig for, well, a bunch of other
19:52
nerds. All right, fine. But what about
19:54
the first professional band to netcast a
19:56
concert? The answer seems
19:58
to be a Seattle group called Sky. on
20:01
November 10, 1994. It was messy
20:03
and glitchy and the audio was bad, but it
20:05
made history. It was a
20:07
technological triumph. The
20:10
first ever internet-only concert by Skye Christ
20:12
Mary. You Rock Moment number 52. Skye
20:36
Christ Mary. I've never heard
20:38
of those guys, but on November 10, 1994,
20:40
they made history by being the first ever band
20:43
to perform an internet-only concert. Skye Christ Mary with
20:45
New Rock Moment number 52. One
20:48
more for this show, and this one involves a
20:50
riot. On March 20, 1990,
20:53
Depeche Mode was scheduled to appear for an autograph
20:55
session at a record store called The Warehouse on
20:58
La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles. And outside
21:00
the crowd, which had been gathering for two
21:02
days, kept getting bigger and bigger.
21:05
By 9 o'clock that night, the crowd was so big
21:07
that traffic was stopped. There were kids all over the
21:09
parking lot and the street. They were up in the
21:11
trees and on the light posts. And
21:13
to take care of all this chaos, there were
21:16
30 security guards. Depeche
21:19
Mode arrived exactly on time, but the
21:21
moment the crowd saw them through the
21:23
window, everybody surged forward, pushing and screaming.
21:26
And there was so much pressure on the long row of
21:28
plate-class windows at the front of the store that it looked
21:30
like everything was going to cave in. Organizers
21:32
tried to keep everything under control, but by 10
21:35
o'clock that night, it was obvious that the situation
21:37
had become dangerous. There
21:39
were anywhere from 20,000 to 25,000 people in the parking lot.
21:43
And that's when the decision was made to
21:45
shut everything down. Well,
21:48
apparently we've been told that we've got to stop
21:50
now and we have to go because there's some
21:52
trouble outside. And I'm sorry, I
21:54
apologize to everyone, but the police are shutting us
21:56
down. When the crowd realized that
21:58
the autograph session was canceled, They
22:01
went nuts. Bricks and rocks and
22:03
bottles started flying. Two large
22:05
neon signs were destroyed. Bits of trim
22:07
and plaster were literally kicked off the
22:10
building. 150 members of the LAPD were
22:13
called in all wearing full riot gear.
22:15
People scattered everywhere, leaving debris and damaged
22:17
cars in their wake. And
22:19
when the dust finally settled, seven people had been sent
22:21
to hospital and the record store was left with a
22:23
bill for $25,000 for the cleanup. It became known as
22:26
the Depeche
22:29
Mode Warehouse Riot. New
22:32
Rock Moment number 51. Now
22:35
let my body to
22:37
the movie. Let my
22:40
hands to the soothing.
22:43
Let me show you the world in
22:45
my eyes. The
22:51
great Depeche Mode Riot in Los Angeles,
22:53
March 20th, 1990. New Rock Moment
22:55
number 51. We're
22:58
now halfway through our list of the 100 greatest moments
23:00
in the history of New Rock. Let's recap the last
23:02
10. Number 60, the launch
23:04
of Punk Magazine. At 59,
23:07
it's the infamous Elvis Costello Saturday
23:09
Night Live episode. Number 58
23:11
is the day The Clash signed their major
23:13
label record contract. At 57, Sex
23:15
Pistols at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in
23:17
Manchester, while their 56th moment is
23:19
The Pistols' last show in San Francisco in
23:22
1978. 55
23:24
is the day Malcolm McLaren was inspired to
23:26
market punk fashion in the UK. At 54,
23:28
Kurt met Courtney for the first time. Moment
23:31
number 53 was the day Dave Grohl
23:33
moved to Seattle. The first internet concert was moment
23:35
number 52, and it's
23:37
the Depeche Mode Riot at 51. On
23:40
the next show, we'll look at another riot,
23:42
a fortuitous act of vandalism, and a note
23:44
on a bulletin board that ended up changing
23:47
music history. And remember what I said
23:49
at the beginning, it's been 20 years since we originally did
23:51
this series. A lot has changed since
23:53
the spring of 2004, so feel free
23:55
to debate this list with others. ongoing
24:00
history of new music podcasts available for free.
24:03
All the platforms have them. Make sure you follow and
24:05
like the feed so you never miss an episode. Plus
24:07
if you can rate and review, that'd be great. We
24:09
can all meet up on my social media
24:11
channels. There's my website, at journalofmusicalthings.com, which is
24:14
updated every day. Plus there's the
24:16
free newsletter that goes with it. And
24:18
I have another podcast. It looks at
24:20
the intersection of music and true crime.
24:22
Look for uncharted crime and mayhem in
24:24
the music industry wherever you get your
24:26
podcasts. And I welcome any emails. Just
24:28
drop me a line at allanatallancross.ca. Technical
24:31
productions by Rob Johnston. We'll talk to you next time.
24:34
I'm Alan Cross.
Podchaser is the ultimate destination for podcast data, search, and discovery. Learn More