The Ongoing History of New Music

In case anyone out there thinks Canadians are mosly brain dead when it comes to music, (a thought coming from the sense of insecurity generated from the perceived perception that we all live in igloos in sub zero weather) here's a copy of a transcript from the years old radio show "The Ongoing History of New Music."

Check it out here. Listen to the old ones or current ones. I'll bet a lot you learn something abou that interest we all share.

9 Great B-Sides - Part 1
Back in the day, there were two sides to all the music you bought. Vinyl records and cassettes had two sides. Once you finished listening to one side-which usually took about twenty minutes-you had to get up and physically turn the thing over so you could hear the other side.

Hey, bear with me on this. There are people listening to this show who have never had to flip over a record or cassette. Digital kids have only had to know one thing: the label side of the CD goes up.

So back to vinyl. Also back in the day, we had the 7-inch single. If you're of a certain age, you'll remember how the 45 rpm record was the heart and soul of rock'n'roll. Untold billions of these things were sold.

Singles featured two songs. One was the big track of the moment-the top 40 hit. Instead of buying the album, you could just buy this one song. And it took up one full side of this 7-inch piece of vinyl. It was the focus. It was numero uno in terms of importance. It was the "A-side".

But what about the other side of this record?. You couldn't just leave it blank. It was expected that something had to take up this space. So the band and the record label stuck another song there. Sometimes it was one of the lesser songs on the current album. Other times is was a track that didn't make the final cut for the album. Whatever the case, it was placed on the "B-side".

The Beatles were sometimes pretty kind. They'd put good songs on both sides of their singles. For example, "Hey Jude" came with the fast and raunchy version of "Revolution" on the B-side. But in most cases, the second side of a single was just a throwaway.

Later, when we moved from vinyl to CDs, the practice of including B-sides continued-except that they weren't really put on the B-side of the CD because, after all, there's only one playable side. Instead, one, two or even three of them were stuck in a sequence behind the lead track on a CD single.

Sometimes they were called "bonus tracks." But old habits die hard. Just as we don't "dial" a phone anymore, we still refer to these secondary tracks as B-sides.

Not all people ignored B-sides. True music geeks listened to both sides of all their 7-inch vinyl singles and to all the bonus tracks on their CD singles. And occasionally, they were rewarded with a song that was as good or even better than the A-side.

This show is all about those hidden gems. There are hundreds of good songs that were stuck at the back of the bus and I've collected together nine of the best.

These tracks may have entered the world as orphans-recordings designed to do nothing more than take up space. But they eventually became famous on their own. And here they are, in no particular order, beginning with this gem from 1984.

One of the most famous-if not the most famous-song in The Smiths' catalogue is "How Soon Is Now".

Believe it or not, this song was a throwaway. This Smiths thought so little of it that it first appeared buried at the very back of a 12-inch single from August 1984. The lead track was "William, It Was Really Nothing". Then came "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want". And then came "How Soon Is Now".

It was then included on an album called Hatful of Hollow, which itself was a collection of odds'n'ends issued by The Smiths' record company in order to buy the band a little more time so they could record a proper second album. It came out in November 1984.

"How Soon Is Now" did come out as a single in February 1985-but only because English fans were paying huge prices for a Dutch import version of the single. And later, when The Smiths signed to Sire Records in America, it was issued as a single but in a vulgar edited version.

Today, "How Soon Is Now" is regarded as a retro classic and one of the best recordings of the 80s. And to think it started out as a B-side.

Let's move on this one from Nirvana. Conventional wisdom is that Kurt Cobain wrote everything Nirvana ever recorded and that Dave Grohl was only allowed to come into his own as a musician and songwriter when he formed the Foo Fighters. That assumption would be incorrect. Dave was a pretty decent guitar player and guitarist long before he joined Nirvana. He developed some decent chops in a couple of other bands, including a not-so-bad DC band called "Scream".

Dave was the last guy to join Nirvana. And by the time he made his way to a Seattle, it was clear that this was Kurt's band. So Dave basically did as he was told, keeping time and singing backup for Kurt's songs.

However, he wasn't shut out entirely. Nirvana released exactly one track that was written and sung by drummer Dave Grohl. If you've never heard it, don't feel bad because it was a B-side. The only place it was released was buried at the end of the CD single for "Heart Shaped Box" back in the days of the In Utero album.