Episodes

  • Unscrupulous Managers | 18

    Unscrupulous Managers | 18
    Jun 26 2024
    If you’re an artist and things are working out well, there will come a time when you need a manager…you need someone to take care of the business end of things while you focus on the music…that’s when you need a manager… A manager does everything from booking gigs to devising career strategies… which includes promotion and marketing, networking, and conducting any negotiations on your behalf…and the manager is in charge of financial management…hold that thought… A manager is incentivized by your success…the usual fee is 15% of whatever you make…obviously, the more you make, the more the manager makes and everyone is happy, right?... The entire relationship is based on trust…you, as the artist, must believe that your manager always has your best interests in mind…and you must believe that your manager will never take advantage of you or rip you off…again, you trust your manager with your money… In the vast majority of artist-manager relationships, things are professional and legal…the best managers will take a bullet for their clients…some are even legendary for their skills, dedication, and loyalty to their artists… That includes Peter Grant, who did whatever he needed to do to protect Led Zeppelin and to extract maximum profit from record deals and concert tours… It includes Paul McGuinness, a veteran who took a very young U2 under his wing in 1978 and built them into the biggest band in the world… And then there’s Peter Mensch and Cliff Bernstein who have looked after Metallica, AC/DC, Smashing Pumpkins, the Chili Peppers, Muse, Def Leppard, Snow Patrol, and Cage the Elephant, among others… But it’s not always sunshine, chocolate, and unicorns…there are bad managers, too…and I’m not talking about general incompetence…I’m talking about people who steal, embezzle, and extort from the very people they’re supposed to protect and nurture… This is “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry,” episode 18…these are three of the worst, most unscrupulous, and most dishonest managers in rock…have I got some stories for you. Show contact info: X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross Website: curiouscast.ca Email: Alan@alancross.ca Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    40 mins
  • Introducing... Deadman's Curse Season 2

    Introducing... Deadman's Curse Season 2
    Jun 20 2024
    In 1931, a larger than life prospector, in search of Slumach’s legendary lost gold mine goes missing in the wilderness of British Columbia. In this episode, we retrace the epic search and rescue efforts that went into looking for the missing prospector as well potential clues left behind at his campsite, that point to an even bigger mystery of what happened to Volcanic Brown? Host: Kru Williams Guest: Adam Palmer Facebook - @HISTORYCanada Instagram - @deadmanscurse Instagram - @Historyca Instagram - @kru_williams Twitter - @HistoryTVCanada Curiouscast website: https://curiouscast.ca/ Great Pacific Media Website: https://greatpacifictv.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    23 mins
  • Phil Spector and the death of Lana Clarkson | 17

    Phil Spector and the death of Lana Clarkson | 17
    Jun 11 2024
    Phil Spector was one of the most successful record producers and songwriters of the 1960s and 70s…he was a boy genius, a millionaire many times over by the time he was 21… He was the first to use the recording studio as an instrument…he called his recording style “wall of sound,” music that was densely layered and jumped out of am radio speakers like nothing else… His favourite collection of studio musicians—his house band—became known as “the wrecking crew” and is considered to be the best the music business has ever known…Spector was responsible for hit records for girl groups like The Crystals and The Ronnettes, creating some of the most iconic pop songs of the era… He produced other massive records for the Righteous Brothers and Ike & Tina Turner…later, he finished up the “Let It Be” album for The Beatles, produced “Imagine” for John Lennon, and a couple of projects for George Harrison… towards the end of the 70s, he guided The Ramones through their “End of the Century” album… Overall, he was behind had 18 top ten singles—one of the very few producers who had number one records in the 60s, 70s, and 80s… Spector was an early inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame…a member of the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame…nominee and winner of Grammy Awards…characters in movies have been based on him… So how did someone so successful and so respected end up convicted for the murder of a B-movie actress?... Show contact info: X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross Website: curiouscast.ca Email: Alan@alancross.ca Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    39 mins
  • The Radiohead Stage Collapse | 16

    The Radiohead Stage Collapse | 16
    May 28 2024
    The very last thing an artist or a promoter or owner of a venue wants is for someone to get hurt—or worse--at a concert…but it does happen… There are always stories about bad behaviour or unexpected crowd dynamics… Altamont in 1969, The Who crowd crush in 1979, Woodstock 99, the nine dead during Pearl Jam’s set at the Roskilde Festival in 2000, the deaths at the Astroworld Festival in 2021, and the Brixton Academy crowd crush in 2023 all come to mind… Those were security failures and problems with crowd control…but occasionally, there’s a different type of disaster, the kind that happens suddenly and without warning… When you go to a show, you expect that the building and everything in it will be safe, that all has been constructed to proper standards, and won’t present any kind of danger to anyone at the gig… The last thing you think about is the stage coming down on top of the performers, the crew, and the crowd… Saturday, June 12, 2012, at Downsview Park in Toronto was a clear, calm summer day. But just minutes before the grounds were to open for fans, thousands of pounds of equipment and scaffolding suddenly came crashing down…one person died and three people were injured… What happened?...and why did it take so long for justice to be served?...and while we’re at it, was justice served? I'm Alan Cross and this is “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem the Music Industry, episode 16”…the Radiohead stage collapse…have I got a story for you… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    35 mins
  • Rock and Roll Predators | 15

    Rock and Roll Predators | 15
    May 14 2024
    There are monsters who walk among us, people who prey on the young and vulnerable…and they have always been out there and in all walks of life… John Wayne Gacy hired himself out as a clown for parties…it was later discovered that he raped, tortured, and murdered at least 33 boys and young men…26 bodies were found in the crawl space under his home near Chicago… Robert Anderson was the sports physician at the University of Michigan…he was accused of raping over a thousand men and women during routine medical exams… There are plenty of celebrities who are convicted sexual offenders…director Roman Polanski can’t come back to the u.s. because he’ll be arrested on rape charges over an encounter with a 13-year-old-girl back in the 70s… Jared Fogel, the subway guy…he was sentenced to 15 years in jail after being convicted of child porn and sex acts with minors…R. Kelly is in jail for 30 years on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering, and child sexual abuse… Woody Allen, Mike Tyson, Bill Cosby, Tupac, Michael Jackson—they’ve all been implicated and, in some cases, charged and convicted…and then there’s Jimmy Savile, the British DJ and media personality who, under the veneer of being philanthropic, may have been one of the most prolific predatory sex offenders in British history… There’s more, too…this is episode 15 of “Uncharted: crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry”…and I have three stories of evil predators from the world of rock… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    35 mins
  • The Charles Manson Music Nightmare | 14

    The Charles Manson Music Nightmare | 14
    Apr 30 2024
    The Manson family murders are among the most famous crimes in American history…their actions have been documented over and over and over…this program will not be a recitation of what happened…instead, we’re going to look specifically at how music figures into this story, before, during, and after these horrific events…music had a much bigger part in the murders than most people realize… This is a story that involves The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Neil Young, The Mamas and Papas, a couple of famous record producers, a large discography of Manson-made records, and a long list of artists who have at least some relationship to Manson and his people… I'm Alan Cross and this is episode 14 of “Uncharted: Music and Mayhem in the Music Industry” This time, it’s the musical nightmare of Charles Manson Show contact info: X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross Website: curiouscast.ca Email: Alan@alancross.ca Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    45 mins
  • The Cults of Rock | 13

    The Cults of Rock | 13
    Apr 16 2024
    Since homo sapiens gained consciousness and self-awareness, we’ve been asking some big questions…what does it all mean?... What’s the purpose of existence?... Is there something more to life and the universe than what I can see?... This has led us down all kinds of spiritual journeys and rabbit holes…for billions, this means turning to religion…but what if traditional spirituality and beliefs don’t cut it?...if you’re not careful, you might find yourself in a cult… Maybe you’re seduced by a charismatic leader who claims to have all the answers when it comes to religion, philosophy, spirituality, and maybe even politics…it's non-mainstream stuff, which is part of the appeal…maybe this leader and his followers really do have all the answers to everything you’ve been searching for… Here’s where things get weird…you’re introduced to unorthodox teachings, strange rituals, odd practices, and wild belief systems…maybe you’re given a task or caught up in the group’s goals and objectives… Then we get into mind control, brainwashing, shaming, suppression of individual identities, totalitarian enforcement of behaviour, separation from family and friends, and even terrorism, violence, and death… There are thousands of groups around the world…many are generally benign hare Krishnas, for example…others are sketchy and warrant skepticism…I’d put the wacky Raelians in that group…and a few are downright dangerous…think the Heaven’s Gate UFO group and suicide cult in San Diego… Now: what happens when you mix cults with music?...a lot of very, very bad things…I'm Alan Cross and this is Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry, episode 13…have i got some stories for you…this is what can happen when music and cults intersect… Show contact info: X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross Website: curiouscast.ca Email: Alan@alancross.ca Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    36 mins
  • The Ever-Popular Kurt-Cobain-Was-Murdered Conspiracy | 12

    The Ever-Popular Kurt-Cobain-Was-Murdered Conspiracy | 12
    Apr 2 2024
    When something bad happens, we want to know why…the weirder and badder the event, the more we need to know… It can’t possibly be random…someone needs to be responsible and held accountable…someone needs to be blamed…and there had better not be any loose ends… Certain segments of the population have always been suspicious of the official story…forget the simplest of most logical explanation…these awful events or phenomenon’s are the work of some kind of secret cabal or organization pulling the strings of life on earth…it was a conspiracy… For example, the most famous murder of modern times was the assassination of JFK on November 22, 1963…more than sixty years later, it seems like no one believes that lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman… To be fair, they might be right…there’s been a lot of investigation into the JFK case over the decades…i’m one of those nuts who reads, watches, and listens to everything involved with the assassination…and I gotta tell you that i’m convinced this was the result of a loose need-to-know operation involving the CIA, the deep stage, Cuban exiles, and American mobsters… There’s also something called “Occam’s razor” which dates back to the 14th century…this Monk—William of Occam—was annoyed at how people blamed supernatural forces when even the simplest thing went wrong…his answer to that was “look, the simplest and most obvious explanation is usually the correct one”… But try that approach with people who believe the earth is flat and that we never went to the moon…Covid-19 was engineered by the media…and the Illuminati live beneath the Denver airport… The world of conspiracy theories is a bottomless pit of weirdness…and when it comes to music, one of the deepest and strangest of these theories has to do with what happened above a greenhouse in Seattle on April 5, 1994… Boy, have I got stories—multiple stories, in fact—about this one…in fact, it might be the most compressive study you’ve ever heard on the subject…this is uncharted: music and mayhem in the music industry, episode 12: it’s the ever-popular Kurt-Cobain-was-murdered theory… Show contact info: X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross Website: curiouscast.ca Email: Alan@alancross.ca Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    55 mins