"You have a choice, you can listen to the ratchet hip-hop, you know what I'm sayin', or you can listen to the good, original sound of what hip-hop really is," says Pete Rock, sitting inside Electric Lady, the studio built by Jimi Hendrix in 1970.
We caught Pete Rock in a particularly pensive mood because two young Canadian MCs, Rich Kidd and Raz Fresco, had just performed "The Creator" as part of our four-part series Rock the Mic. "The Creator" is a significant one for him, as it's one of the few tracks Pete Rock produced and exclusively raps on. Watch the brief interview and performance below.
The legendary producer rose to prominence in the '90s as part of the duo Pete Rock and CL Smooth. As a solo producer, he became a pillar of the golden era sound, working with the likes of Common, Gang Starr, J Dilla, Naughty by Nature, Run-D.M.C. and, quite frankly, far too many to mention here.
Below, he shares more thoughts on classic hip-hop and shouts out Saukrates and Kardinal, who "started representing," he says. "New York wasn't the only place where you could hear a dope MC.
Riot Fest's already impressive Toronto lineup— which features the likes of Death from Above 1979, the Buzzcocks, Social Distortion, Metric, the National, Dropkick Murphys and more — just got even better with the addition of the Cure. The veteran goth rock act was added to the bill late last night.
Riot Fest's Toronto stop will take place at Downsview Park on Sept. 6 and 7. There will also be Riot Fests in Chicago and Denver.
Listen to Rich Terfry tell you 10 incredible facts about `Light My Fire`by The Doors
- This song gave The Doors their breakthrough. Before its release, they were little-known outside of the Los Angeles area.
- It became The Doors first hit and it was a big one, reaching #1 on the Billboard chart.
- Many years after the song's release, it was discovered by a university professor that the song appeared on The Doors' debut album slowed down by 3.5%. This put the song in a key half a step lower than the key in which it was written. It wasn't until 2006 that a corrected version was released.
- The band agreed to licence the song to Buick for a commercial without singer Jim Morrison's approval. When he heard about it, he threw a fit. He contacted Buick and threatened to destroy one of their cars on live television if the spot ever aired. It never did.
- When the band was invited to perform the song on The Ed Sullivan show, they were asked by the show's producer to change a lyric with a drug reference. The band agreed, but Morrison sung the original lyric anyway. For that, they were never invited back to the Sullivan show.
- Keyboardist Ray Manzarek said that the song's keyboard intro was inspired by Bach's Two and Three Part Inventions and that the bassline was taken from Fats Domino's hit "Blueberry Hill".
- The guitar and organ solos performed in the song are based on John Coltrane's jazz rendition of "My Favorite Things" from the Sound of Music soundtrack.
- This was the last song Jim Morrison performed before he died. That last show was in Baltimore on December 12th, 1970.
- According to his diaries, Jim Morrison wasn't a fan of the song and disliked performing it live. It's speculated that this is because he wasn't the song's primary writer and he resented the fact that it was the band's most popular song.
- The Door's record company was against the idea of releasing it as a single, saying it was too long for radio play at over six minutes long. Sure they had a hit on their hands, the band agreed to a radio edit that cut the song's length in half.
Here's the song that went to number one on the charts in July of 1967. It was knocked off three weeks later by "All You Need Is Love" by The Beatles - here's "Light My Fire" by The Doors on Rear View Mirror.
Here are some other great editions of Rear-view Mirror:
Listen to Rich Terfry tell you 10 incredible facts about `Light My Fire`by The Doors
- This song gave The Doors their breakthrough. Before its release, they were little-known outside of the Los Angeles area.
- It became The Doors first hit and it was a big one, reaching #1 on the Billboard chart.
- Many years after the song's release, it was discovered by a university professor that the song appeared on The Doors' debut album slowed down by 3.5%. This put the song in a key half a step lower than the key in which it was written. It wasn't until 2006 that a corrected version was released.
- The band agreed to licence the song to Buick for a commercial without singer Jim Morrison's approval. When he heard about it, he threw a fit. He contacted Buick and threatened to destroy one of their cars on live television if the spot ever aired. It never did.
- When the band was invited to perform the song on The Ed Sullivan show, they were asked by the show's producer to change a lyric with a drug reference. The band agreed, but Morrison sung the original lyric anyway. For that, they were never invited back to the Sullivan show.
- Keyboardist Ray Manzarek said that the song's keyboard intro was inspired byBach's Two and Three Part Inventions and that the bassline was taken from Fats Domino's hit "Blueberry Hill".
- The guitar and organ solos performed in the song are based on John Coltrane's jazz rendition of "My Favorite Things" from the Sound of Music soundtrack.
- This was the last song Jim Morrison performed before he died. That last show was in Baltimore on December 12th, 1970.
- According to his diaries, Jim Morrison wasn't a fan of the song and disliked performing it live. It's speculated that this is because he wasn't the song's primary writer and he resented the fact that it was the band's most popular song.
- The Door's record company was against the idea of releasing it as a single, saying it was too long for radio play at over six minutes long. Sure they had a hit on their hands, the band agreed to a radio edit that cut the song's length in half.
Here's the song that went to number one on the charts in July of 1967. It was knocked off three weeks later by "All You Need Is Love" by The Beatles - here's "Light My Fire" by The Doors on Rear View Mirror.
Here are some other great editions of Rear-view Mirror:
They are two of the most influential women in pop, and their decidedly different styles collide in M.I.A.'s new remix of Beyoncé's "Flawless."
Re-naming the track "Baddygirld 2", M.I.A. has transformed the song into a beat-heavy sonic onslaught, and added a few words of her own to its strong feminist message.
She released it yesterday on Twitter saying, "Beyonce camp has not replied for months > SO HERE."
He's cutting live tracks with Jack White, pushing his Pono and he's about to release A Letter Home, an album of acoustic covers of songs by Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Gordon Lightfoot, Bert Jansch and more. (Stream it for free at CBC Music starting May 19.)
But evidently Young is still finding time to dig deep into his archives and unearth another album's worth of previously unreleased tracks, and it's going to be finished this summer.
"All of the music will be done. It goes just past [1979's] Rust Never Sleeps," Young told Rolling Stone. "It's full of albums that weren't there before – stuff I did that I never put out."
Young promises that Archives 2 will contain even more material than the 10-disc first volume, and will cover the period from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, including material from three unreleased studio albums (Chrome Dreams, Homegrown and Oceanside-Country) as well as a live album, Time Fades Away.
Young also promises there are three more volumes to come, with the last covering the 2000s, and they will come out fairly quickly.
" I've gotten to the point where I've made a template for how to release it in the future, if I can't do it myself," he said. "I've also done a lot of it myself. The quality is there. It's a model for how to preserve music."
So is Young doing all of these projects because he feels that he's racing against time?
"I'm only busy because of the things that I'm doing. They demand that I do them. I'm not doing anything I don't want to do," he said. "I do one thing at a time, and I do it right. But I do keep them coming. And they all seem to be very important. I follow my heart, doing what I think I should do."
A cruise ship arriving in Hamburg gave people on the ship and the shore an extra blast of fun when it played the first few bars of the White Stripes hit "Seven Nation Army" on its horn.
Crowds of people were on shore as part of the German port's 825th anniversary and cheered as the familiar tune resonated across the water when the luxury Italian cruise ship MSC Magnifica traveled past.
In addition to being an indie rock hit, the song, released in 2003, has become a party anthem that's chanted out at professional sports games, especially soccer.
Since the video was posted a few days ago, it has gone viral and garnered nearly two million views.
Soprano Lyne Fortin sings the role of Lady Macbeth in Opéra de Québec's production of Verdi's Macbeth opening May 17 at Le Grand Théâtre in Quebec City. Fortin, a lyric soprano acclaimed for her portrayal of Mimi in Puccini's La Bohème, Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto and Micaëla in Bizet's Carmen, has recently moved into dramatic soprano repertoire with Lady Macbeth.
"La Traviata became way too easy," she joked via email. Fortin says she likes the athleticism, both vocal and dramatic, of the role.
Lady Macbeth's personality — manipulative and famously wracked with guilt ("Out, damned spot! Out, I say!") — could not be further removed from Fortin's. The Quebec soprano is known for her sense of humour, love of cats and down-to-earth disposition.
We knew Fortin would be the perfect candidate for the CBC Classical questionnaire, so we put her in the hot seat.
The first recording I ever bought:
Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky.
I can’t live without:
My cats.
I can’t go onstage without:
Nothing comes to mind; I have all I need.
My weakness:
Sensitivity to injustice.
My ideal night off:
Quality time with my cats and boyfriend.
My all-time favourite musician:
My dad.
My favourite composer to sing:
I can't choose. They all have something different.
One thing very few people know about me:
I wear glitter any time, any day.
I am most looking forward to:
The next Star Trek movie.
My favourite colour:
Today? Red.
My idea of happiness:
Here and now. Just watch a cat, you'll know.
The quality I like most in others:
Authenticity.
The quality I like most in myself:
Authenticity.
My favourite drink:
Am I boring? Water, or champagne.
My present state of mind:
Bliss, because I have cats purring all around me.
An occasion on which I lie:
I prefer avoiding the occasion.
My most treasured possession:
A recording of my dad and his band, made 50 years ago.
The greatest love of my life:
Hmmm … the sun.
The place where I would most like to live:
I am happy where I am but I could try Scandinavian country for a while.
My greatest fear:
Small spaces full of people.
My favourite journey:
A walk on the shore of the fleuve Saint-Laurent, behind my mother's house. Always an adventure.
A word or phrase I overuse:
It annoys me when I hear people repeat a phrase, so I watch myself and I stop it before it happens.
The talent I would most like to have:
The superpower to fly!
My favourite aroma:
Fresh roses and lilac.
Person I'd call in an emergency:
My boyfriend.
Person I'd call if I wanted to laugh:
My friend Angèle, who turns any situation into a comical movie.
Way back in mid-2011, the Weeknd was simultaneously the hottest unsigned act in music, and a weird, shadowy mystery. He had been endorsed by Drake, as well as blogs like Pitchfork and 2 Dope Boys. At the same time, people weren't sure if the Weeknd was a solo act or a group, or what gender the vocalist was.
In June of that year, Abel Tesfaye took the stage at the Mod Club for a hometown debut concert that sold out almost instantly.
Did you know that Canada Post and Library and Archives Canada have an online exhibition of Canadian mail-order catalogues? Neither did we. It's a pretty interesting look at the pre-internet world, when people would order everything from clothes to lawn mowers to musical instruments out of a catalogue.
Before Eaton's went out of business (presumably for sending the wrong hockey sweaters to the wrong kids), their catalogues were phone book-sized cinder blocks that thudded into our mailboxes. The 1975 Eaton's catalogue contains 800 pages, zero natural fibres and more girdles than you'd think. We went through it and found the coolest stuff for the music fans of 1975 and today. Check them out in the gallery above.
Every week, all year long, our music committee here at CBC Radio 3 listens to new and emerging Canadian music and picks the very best tracks for you to hear.
From the towering stacks of discs and piles of files, we select anywhere from six to fifteen to twenty new songs to be added into rotation on SiriusXM 162 and streaming online at cbcmusic.ca/radio3 each week.
In the spirit of musical discovery and to keep you in the loop as much as possible, we want to share those "adds" with you.
Click through our gallery above to meet our new "adds" this week and listen to the hosts talk about and play the artists today and all week on CBC Radio 3 by clicking the button below.
Which artists do you like best from the new "adds"? Which new artist do you think we should play on CBC Radio 3? Let us know in the comments below or tweet @CBCRadio3.
Listen to Rich Terfry tell you 10 incredible facts about `Light My Fire`by The Doors
- This song gave The Doors their breakthrough. Before its release, they were little-known outside of the Los Angeles area.
- It became The Doors first hit and it was a big one, reaching #1 on the Billboard chart.
- Many years after the song's release, it was discovered by a university professor that the song appeared on The Doors' debut album slowed down by 3.5%. This put the song in a key half a step lower than the key in which it was written. It wasn't until 2006 that a corrected version was released.
- The band agreed to licence the song to Buick for a commercial without singer Jim Morrison's approval. When he heard about it, he threw a fit. He contacted Buick and threatened to destroy one of their cars on live television if the spot ever aired. It never did.
- When the band was invited to perform the song on The Ed Sullivan show, they were asked by the show's producer to change a lyric with a drug reference. The band agreed, but Morrison sung the original lyric anyway. For that, they were never invited back to the Sullivan show.
- Keyboardist Ray Manzarek said that the song's keyboard intro was inspired byBach's Two and Three Part Inventions and that the bassline was taken from Fats Domino's hit "Blueberry Hill".
- The guitar and organ solos performed in the song are based on John Coltrane's jazz rendition of "My Favorite Things" from the Sound of Music soundtrack.
- This was the last song Jim Morrison performed before he died. That last show was in Baltimore on December 12th, 1970.
- According to his diaries, Jim Morrison wasn't a fan of the song and disliked performing it live. It's speculated that this is because he wasn't the song's primary writer and he resented the fact that it was the band's most popular song.
- The Door's record company was against the idea of releasing it as a single, saying it was too long for radio play at over six minutes long. Sure they had a hit on their hands, the band agreed to a radio edit that cut the song's length in half.
Here's the song that went to number one on the charts in July of 1967. It was knocked off three weeks later by "All You Need Is Love" by The Beatles - here's "Light My Fire" by The Doors on Rear View Mirror.
Here are some other great editions of Rear-view Mirror:
Every now and again, a musician will take you on a little tour of how many places they've been rocking out.
Hank Snow has been everywhere, Sir Mix-A-Lot has jumped on it all across the States, and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion is apparently number one in New York City, and many other places. But how do the songs stack up, and which artist have travelled farthest? We made a tally.
She was known as "the dancing crossing guard," but now the colourful Kathleen Byers has been forced to hang up her safety vest and stop sign for good.
Byers, who is famed for dancing on the corner as she waits for kids to arrive, then dancing them across the street, was immediately suspended without pay last Thursday after she appeared in a Born Ruffians music video for "Oh Cecilia."
“I wasn’t twerking or wearing a thong for God’s sake,” the former fitness instructor told the National Post. “It’s a sad world when you just can’t enjoy life and not take everything so seriously.”
The Toronto Police Service, which runs the crossing guard program, told Byers that she was suspended because she had worn her uniform for "a purpose other than prescribed in Toronto Police Service rules and procedures."
In December of last year, police told Byers to stop dancing because it created a public safety hazard and put pedestrians' lives at risk — even though the same force had featured her in a 2012 safety training video that saw her dancing and hamming it up for the camera. In response, Byers toned down her dancing and made it look more like light exercise.
But the crossing guard's record was spotless. "I’ve never had a child hurt in 10 and a half years,” she said. “The thing I’m very proud of is I’ve never sat on a chair, read a book, played with a phone, leaned against a fence and waved the kids across. I’ve always gone on the road, watched [traffic] to a T.
"I’m as safe as they can be. I just happen to move to the beat of a different drummer maybe."
Since receiving the letter, Byers has said that she does not want to fight the police and will be leaving the job she loved. Now local parents and other residents have been contacting her to show their support.
They also told her that on Monday, there was no crossing guard at the corner where she worked.
Legendary Top 40 countdown host and voice of Scooby Doo Casey Kasem has been found.
According to CBC News, Kasem was located by the Kitsap County Sheriff's Department on Wednesday, shortly after Kasem's children filed a missing person's report.
"We are grateful to the local authorities for finding my dad," Kasem's daughter Kerri wrote in a statement. "We are one step closer to bringing him home."
Earlier this week it was revealed that the celebrity host, who has dementia and had been in residential care, had been removed from the Los Angeles facility where he was living, and a judge expressed concerns about his whereabouts and his safety.
Until Monday, Kasem's wife Jean had been in control of his medical care and access. According to court filings, she has blocked three of Kasem's children from a previous marriage from seeing him in recent months.
The story, which has spread around the world, has exposed a major rift between Kasem's daughters and their stepmother.
Danny Deraney, a spokesman for Kerri Kasem and her siblings, said the family still has "grave concerns" about Casey Kasem's health.
Jean Kasem's attorney Craig Marcus argued Monday that his client had the right to move her husband to any facility she saw fit.
Welcome to In Tune, your weekly classical news feed on CBC Radio 2. Saturdays at noon, Katherine Duncan shares the classical music and musicians people are listening to and talking about, here in Canada and around the world. Here are the stories she's covering this week.
Another U.S. orchestra is going to the dogs. The Baltimore Symphony is auditioning pooches to find a suitably 'dreamy' dog to take part in their new production of Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream.
New research says sound effects can make your food taste better. We suggest an appropriate pairing for your next seafood feast.
Find out why pianist Lang Lang is backing up Korean boy-band star Jun K in a new video.
We see them every day — birds gathering on high electrical wires. But what happens if you transform those birds and wires into musical notes on a staff?
Brazilian multimedia artist Jarbas Agnelli decided to find out.
The video he created went viral, and ended up being named among the Top 25 best videos on Youtube by the first ever YouTube Play Guggenheim — a biennial of creative videos — in 2010. It was also exhibited at the Guggenheim museums in New York, Berlin, Bilbao and Venice.
Check it out:
And here is the piece being performed live at the YouTube awards ceremony:
Toronto's high energy punk rock band PUP has made a name for themselves by always pushing both their music and their bodies to the breaking point. Today, the visceral band has released a gripping new video for the song "Guilt Trip".
The video comes off as a dark rock 'n' roll combination of Stand By Me and The River's Edge, telling the (we hope) fictional story of the band's bloody origins. Radio 3's very own Grant Lawrence has a role in the video as a drunk police officer who meets a grim fate.
Watch it below and let us know what you think in the comments below!
March 2, 2014, would have marked Lou Reed’s 72nd birthday, and on Saturday, March 1, the Canadian music industry joined Kevin Hearn, of Barenaked Ladies fame, in tribute to Reed, his work and influence.
Over the past several years, Hearn was Reed’s musical director and friend. His journey to land this coveted role as Reed’s right-hand man is a long and personal one. To say that Reed had an impact on Hearn’s life would be an understatement.
Beyond Hearn’s relationship with Reed, many other Canadian musicians were touched and influenced by the late singer's music. On March 1, they came in droves to CBC's Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto to sing his songs.
'Walk on the Wild Side' by Kevin Hearn and friends
"The Original Wrapper" by Buck 65 and Ed Robertson
"Perfect Day" by Measha Brueggergosman
"Sweet Jane" by Andy Kim
"What's Good" by Kevin Drew
Have you ever gotten the feeling that Gord Downie spent a lot of time as a child analyzing rock stars? It’s the only way to explain his supernatural stage presence. Downie chose to perform “How Do You Think It Feels” from the Berlin album, which was produced by fellow Canadian Bob Ezrin.
"How Do You Think It Feels" by Gord Downie
When you’re introduced to Reed, it is most likely going to be a life-changing moment. For Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw, that was without a doubt true. Hearn introduced the duo to Reed at a Neil Young tribute in Vancouver, and before long Reed was guesting on a Metric album. They recorded with Reed at Electric Lady in New York, the studio that Jimi Hendrix built. They would later sing together at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. Haines and Shaw recreate that night for us with their performance of “Pale Blue Eyes.”
"Pale Blue Eyes" by Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw
Chris Hadfield and Hearn had collaborated before this night, when they recorded the “I.S.S.” song for CBC Music and Music Monday. In true astronaut style, Hadfield was also the first musician to be prepared enough to send over a precise chord chart and lyric sheet to his chosen song, “Satellite of Love.”
"Satellite Of Love" by Chris Hadfield
I had the pleasure of spending the night of the concert in the Glenn Gould Studio control room with Prakash John, who was Lou Reed’s bass player at the height of his success and excess in the mid-’1970s. To say that John has seen it all would be an understatement. When Hawksley Workman hit the stage, John’s eyes lit up; he was mesmerized. He leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Now Lou would have liked this guy.” Watch Workman completely tear up the stage of Glenn Gould Studio with his version of one of Lou Reed’s biggest hits, “Dirty Boulevard.”
"Dirty Boulevard" by Hawksley Workman
Check back starting on May 21 for more videos to be added daily!
