The Ongoing History of New Music, encore presentation: Remembering Sinead O’Connor

When the news broke of Sinead O’Connor’s death on July 26, 2023, there were a couple of different reactions. One was “Who’s Sinead O’Connor?” That wasn’t terribly surprising. Her last hit album was released in 1990. A couple of generations have gone by since she was on the charts and may have never heard of any of her songs. The second reaction came from readers of tabloids and gossip columns, those who had at least peripherally heard about her struggles through middle age. The third reaction came from those who remembered not only what a talent she was, but that she was also a force of nature unlike almost anyone we had ever seen in music. That is why her death was front page news around the planet. Sinead O’Connor took a position—many positions, in fact—with her art and her public persona and never, ever backed down… she was always herself…she was a nonconformist. She would not be put in a box and refused to be silenced. Sinead spoke up on things few people would dare talk about, including her own personal struggles (of which there were many). She spoke up on women’s rights, children’s rights, organized religion, the struggles of gay, lesbian, and transgender people, aids patients, racial minorities, and the patriarchy of the recorded music business. Did you know that she donated her house in Hollywood to a family of refugees from Somalia? When she died, she left behind an intriguing body of work that includes solo material and collaborations. Two of those solo albums are all-time classics. But if you know Sinead O’Connor, you already know this and what you’re about to hear will bring back a flood of memories. But if you’re late to the party, you may still be asking yourself “What’s the big deal about Sinead O’Connor?” Here: let me show you. Songs heard on this show (all by Sinead O’Connor)
    • I Am Stretched on Your Grave
    • Heroine (with The Edge)
    • Troy
    • Nothing Compares 2 U
    • All Apologies
    • No Man’s Woman
    • Milestones
Here’s a playlist from Eric Wilhite. The Ongoing History Music can be heard on these stations. Don’t forget that there’s a podcast version, too, in case you miss any episodes. Get them for free wherever you get your podcasts.
Don’t forget about my other podcast, Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry. If you love true crime with your music, you’ll love this. Get Uncharted wherever you get your podcasts.

© 2025 Corus Radio, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Ongoing History Daily: Musical thrill junkies

Many musicians engage in extreme behavior, including things that are dangerous and illegal. Why? Probably because artists can turn into thrill junkies. Neurologists believe dopamine—the body’s feel-good hormone—may have less impact on them. Okay, why? Hard to say.

Each of us has individual brain chemistries, meaning that we react to dopamine in different ways. Extreme people need extreme things to get the same dopamine hit as the average person. In other words, they may have a dopamine tolerance that’s built up over years of chasing that feeling on a daily basis. The longer they live, the harder they have to go to get a meaningful and transcendent dopamine high.

This may also extend to areas of their lives beyond music. Here’s where we get into things like becoming addicted to risky and dangerous behavior—anything to feel that feeling that most of us get a much lower levels of dopamine.

© 2025 Corus Radio, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Throwback Thursday: Ned's Atomic Dustbin and Grey Cell Green (1991)

The very late/early 1990s were a volatile and prolific time in British indie music. Coming off the 80s rave and dance scene, the country was also spitting out Madchester, alt-dance, shoegaze, dreampop, and various forms of pre-Britpop. Among all that was grebo, a short-lived alt-rock/shoegaze cousin that had a lifespan of maybe 24 months. The key acts were Pop Will Eat Itself, Gaye Bikers on Acid, and Ned’s Atomic Dustbin.

Complex dance beats? Check. Fuzzy guitars? Bingo. Two bass players? Why not?

This was one of the singles from their 1991 album, God Fodder. Glorious stuff. Where’s me baggy shorts?

© 2025 Corus Radio, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Ongoing History Daily: Why do we have different reactions to music?

Everyone reacts to music at different levels and in different ways. You might be a laid-back kind of listener, someone who just sits back and takes it all in. Or you may be the kind of music fan that loses their mind over all music with singing and dancing and jumping about. Why the difference?

It’s largely neurological and chemical. The spectrum of musical reactions is related to how an individual creates and reacts to dopamine, the brain’s feel-good hormone. Dopamine can have wide-ranging effects depending on our own individual chemistries. It doesn’t mean that the quiet listener is less of a music fan than the spontaneous singer and dancer; it just means that the physical reactions are different. Dopamine is an interesting hormone.

© 2025 Corus Radio, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Undiscovered Gem of the Week: The Getmines and Murder Podcast

A little hard rock and a little punk soaked in some beer and vague memories of some bad decisions made last night. That’s how this Vancouver trio describes what they do. They also say “Guaranteed to throw napalm on any party.”

As the host of a true crime podcast myself, I was immediately attracted to the opening track of their Gold & Silver album. And because I like the record, I’ve included the whole thing here.

© 2025 Corus Radio, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Ongoing History Daily: Why local music sounds better when you're on vacation

If you’ve ever gone on vacation to a place where the local music is everywhere—say, the Caribbean with its reggae and dancehall and so on—you may have noticed that this music sounds absolutely brilliant while you’re away. You might even try to listen to that same music when you get back home. But have you noticed that this vacation music doesn’t have the same boost as it did when you were away? Music researchers are interested in this phenomenon. They believe it’s related to the instinctive social bonding that comes through music. If we are immersed in local music, it helps us feel more included in that environment. But when we’re removed from that environment, the immediate need to bond with the locals dissipates and the musical boost lessens.

© 2025 Corus Radio, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

'Like a spare tire': Ontario company launches backup option for mobile outages

WATCH: Rogers outage sparks new deal between Canada's telecom companies.

When a service outage in July 2022 left millions of Rogers customers in the dark for up to 15 hours, it underscored the importance of being prepared in case of a similar emergency.

For some, that meant having lifelines in place that don’t rely on individual cellphone plans, such as alternative ways to call 911, or carrying extra cash on hand in case another blackout shuts down debit machines.

Now, a Waterloo, Ont., company is pitching what it says is another must-have in the event of a future telecom outage: an e-sim card that lives on your device and can connect you to an allotment of spare data.

Developed by Sweat Free Telecom founder Chanakya Ramdev, the e-sim can be installed through a QR code provided. If your carrier’s network goes down, you would then use your cellphone settings to activate the e-sim, which is programmed to automatically hop onto the best available network in the area.

“What we’ve built is — you can think of it almost like a telecom network on top of all the others,” said Ramdev.

“We are like a backup, a Plan B, almost like an insurance. We position ourselves as like a spare tire for your car.”

Ramdev said the aim is to complement, rather than compete, with major carriers. The e-sim doesn’t have talk or text capability, but it allows 911 calling and provides access to data, letting the user communicate through apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

He said it’s a brand new model for bolstering network resiliency, which has long been a top-of-mind issue for policy-makers and industry players.

Unlike other e-sims primarily meant for international travel, Ramdev said his data plans don’t have an expiry date.

“You can just buy it once and it stays in your phone, and whenever you need it — whether it’s today, a year from now, one thousand years from now — you can still use it then,” he said.

“Use your main carrier for everything, but if and when there’s ever an issue, or if you’re in a dead zone, then you can use us as a backup.”

Packages come as cheap as $15 for a gigabyte of data, or can be purchased in larger quantities, such as $55 for five gigabytes.

It works through a partnership between Ramdev’s company and an overseas telecom that has roaming agreements with most major providers, including in Canada.

That means the e-sim not only connects to major Canadian networks such as those operated by Rogers, Bell and Telus, but also to more than 200 other networks across roughly 100 countries. While the technology is designed to choose the best available signal, Ramdev said the user also has the option of manually selecting a different network to access if they prefer.

Improving network resiliency and redundancy has been a priority of Canada’s telecom regulator in recent years. The CRTC cited the Rogers outage of nearly three years ago as one of the events prompting its consultation into how providers must report and notify customers when their services go down.

 

Earlier this year, the regulator announced improvements for customers in Northern Canada, where remote residents have grown used to frequent outages. That includes a requirement for local provider Northwestel to automatically reduce customers’ bills when internet services are disrupted for at least 24 hours.

The federal government has also floated satellite technology as a potential solution, having launched a consultation into the matter last year.

For its part, Rogers has sought to strengthen the resiliency of its networks since the outage, which was caused by a configuration error during a network upgrade, according to a report by Xona Partners Inc. delivered to the CRTC last year.

In response, Rogers partnered with Cisco to split and build a new dedicated IP core, separating its wireline and wireless core networks, while improving the processes for change management and incident management. The company said it also completed a full review of its networks and implemented all recommendations contained in the independent report.

About a month after the Rogers outage, Canada’s major telecom companies reached a formal agreement to “ensure and guarantee” mobile roaming and other mutual assistance in the case of a future major outage.

Ramdev said he hopes to help Canadians avoid the panic that comes from being disconnected during outages, which have grown more frequent amid wildfires and other natural disasters, not to mention the threat of malicious actors.

“Our focus is on people like me who went through the Rogers outage, but there are also a lot of … people whose job is to make sure that a business continues to function when there is an outage,” he said.

“This is just meant to give them some kind of peace of mind, that if there is ever an issue, at least they have some kind of backup.”

© 2025 The Canadian Press

Turnovers sink Winnipeg Jets in 4-1 loss in Los Angeles

It’s been very challenging for visiting teams to win in Los Angeles this season, and when you shoot yourself in the foot several times, it certainly doesn’t help your cause.

The Winnipeg Jets were undone by turnovers Tuesday night in L.A., dropping a 4-1 decision that improved the Kings’ impressive home record to 28-4-4 on the season.

The Kings turned three Jets giveaways directly into three goals and added an empty netter to end the Jets three-game win streak.

“We turned the puck over three times and it ended up in the back of our net,” said Jets head coach Scott Arniel. “I liked a lot of what we did, our game plan against them. We did a good job of getting through the neutral zone.

“We didn’t spend a lot of time in our end of the rink, but again, we made three mistakes and ended up in the back of our net.”

The Jets fell behind by two goals early and Cole Perfetti’s 17th goal of the season in the second period pulled the Jets within one. But Andrei Kuzmenko scored off a Logan Stanley turnover late in the frame to restore the two-goal lead.

The Jets had single digit shot totals in each of the three periods and ended up getting outshot 20-19.

“The entire game, I thought we played pretty well,” said Perfetti. “They’re obviously a really good team in this building and they don’t give up much. But I thought we created some chances and had our looks and a couple of self-inflicted wounds and they capitalized on some of their chances.”

Perfetti has at least a point in five of his last six games.

With the victory, the Kings won all three meetings to sweep the season series for the first time since the 2012-2013 season when they met only once. The Jets scored just once in each of their three matchups this season.

“They’re extremely stingy,” said Arniel. “They don’t give you a whole lot. They’re the type of team that if you make mistakes they pounce on it.”

Luke Schenn missed the game and is day-to-day after stiffening up during the morning skate. Haydn Fleury dressed in his absence.

The Jets lead the Dallas Stars by only four points for the division lead and the Stars have a game in hand.

Not much happened over the first eight minutes of the game but a pair of misplays burned the Jets in a big way near the midway mark of the first.

The first mistake came when Colin Miller sent a grenade of a pass up the boards in his own end, too high and too hot for Mark Scheifele to corral. It landed on the stick of Brandon native Joel Edmundson at the point, who sent a shot on net that banked off Trevor Moore and into the net at the 8:28 mark.

Just over a minute later, Josh Morrissey sent a breakout pass to David Gustafsson that the forward couldn’t handle in the neutral zone. LA picked it up as Morrissey went off for a change with Adrian Kempe charging into the Winnipeg zone with the puck. He dropped it off to Andrei Kuzmenko who sent it backdoor to Anze Kopitar for a one-timer that beat Connor Hellebuyck to make it 2-0 at the 9:50 mark.

The Kings wound up outshooting the Jets 10-7 in the opening 20 minutes. Winnipeg started to generate some decent looks late in the period but couldn’t get on the board.

The Jets generated solid zone time in the early minutes of the second as well but continued to struggle to get shots to the net.

Los Angeles earned the game’s first power play when Kevin Fiala was tripped by the stick of Hellebuyck to the right of the Winnipeg net. The Jets managed to kill the penalty and moments later got on the board.

Perfetti served the minor penalty for Hellebuyck and right as he stepped out of the box, Morgan Barron made a great play to block a shot and collect the puck, leading to Perfetti being sprung on a 2-on-1 with Kyle Connor. Perfetti never looked to pass as he rifled a perfect shot that beat Darcy Kuemper to make it 2-1 at the 11:40 mark.

The Jets had the momentum as they looked to even the score but another big blunder set them back.

Logan Stanley skated out of his own end with the puck and as he attempted to cross the red line, Kuzmenko poke-checked the puck off Stanley’s stick, and as Stanley lost his balance and fell to the ice, Kuzmenko skated the puck into the Winnipeg end on an odd-man rush.

He looked pass the whole way, fooling Hellebuyck before he slid a shot through Hellebuyck’s five-hole to restore the Kings’ two-goal lead at the 16:07 mark.

The Kings maintained their edge in shots on goal heading to the third period, edging Winnipeg 18-13 through 40 minutes.

Winnipeg got their first power play chance of the night with 15 minutes to go in the third when Nikolaj Ehlers was tripped in the attacking zone but the Jets, operating at a 17 per cent clip on the power play since the Four Nations Faceoff, failed to generate any shots on goal over the two minutes.

Ehlers drew another penalty with 5:08 remaining but the power play again struggled mightily, never getting set up and failing to generate a shot once again.

Winnipeg pulled Hellebuyck for an extra attacker but Kempe sealed the win with an empty-netter with 55 seconds to go.

The Jets fall to 0-2-1 against the Kings this season and failed to register 20 shots on goal in any of the meetings.

Hellebuyck turned aside 16 shots in defeat.

The Jets will now head to Vegas to face the Golden Knights Thursday night. Puck drop is just after 9:30 p.m. with pregame coverage on 680 CJOB starting at 7 p.m.

© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Draisaitl and Oilers beat Golden Knights 3-2, but Vegas clinches playoff spot

Leon Draisaitl added to his NHL-leading goal total by scoring on a 5-on-3 power play to put the Edmonton Oilers ahead for good Tuesday night, but the Vegas Golden Knights clinched a playoff berth despite the 3-2 loss.

The Golden Knights, who had their season-high six-game winning streak snapped, were assured a playoff spot when the Calgary Flames were beaten 3-1 by the Utah Hockey Club.

Edmonton kept its slim hopes alive for the Pacific Division title, pulling to within seven points of the first-place Golden Knights. Both teams have eight regular-season games left.

Draisaitl’s goal was his 52nd this season and 399th of his career, drawing “MVP” chants from Edmonton fans. Jake Walman and Viktor Arvidsson also scored for the Oilers, Evan Bouchard had two assists and Calvin Pickard stopped 20 shots.

“They might be a playoff opponent we are playing,” said Arvidsson after the game. “That was a big game for us.”

Pavel Dorofeyev and Nicolas Roy each scored for the Golden Knights. Dorofeyev’s goal gave him a team-leading 32. Adin Hill made 17 saves. Jack Eichel’s six-game point streak (six goals, seven assists) ended.

TAKEAWAYS

Oilers: After a slow start, Edmonton began to find its game late in the first period and then scored all three of its goals in the second.

Golden Knights: Vegas is in the playoffs, but this was a missed opportunity by the Golden Knights to put even more distance between themselves and Edmonton and Los Angeles.

KEY MOMENT

Arvidsson’s goal came when he jammed the puck into the net under Hill’s leg pad. The Golden Knights challenged the goal, but the call was upheld to give the Oilers a 3-1 lead late in the second period.

“I just saw the puck where it went in and I took the chance,” Arvidsson said in reference to his game winning goal.

KEY STAT

Golden Knights captain Mark Stone played in his 700th career game.

UP NEXT

Oilers: Visit the San Jose Sharks on Thursday.

Golden Knights: Host the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday.

© 2025 The Canadian Press

Spring bunting competition pays off for Blue Jays

TORONTO – A team bunting contest in spring training took a bite out of Blue Jays manager John Schneider’s wallet but proved to be a worthwhile investment Tuesday in a 5-3 win over the Washington Nationals.

Will Wagner bunted his way on to first base as part of a three-run second inning. And, after George Springer singled to open the bottom of the eighth with the game tied 3-3, Wagner got on base again when pitcher Jose Ferrer fumbled another bunt. Ernie Clement’s sacrifice bunt then advanced the runners.

After pinch-hitter Davis Schneider struck out, Bo Bichette lined a single down the right-field line to score both runners and restore the Jays’ lead.

“We actually had a bunting competition, true story, in spring training,” Schneider revealed after the game. “And we divided guys into teams with the winning team getting $1,000 courtesy of me. They worked hard at it.”

The bunting competition pitted six players on Team Blue against six on Team Jays, Schneider recalled.

The competition had players laying down sacrifice bunts, some bunting for hits and others bunting in a safety squeeze situation. First base coach Mark (Bud) Budzinski brought props, from cones to hula hoops.

“It gets repetitive when you get asked to come out and bunt early in spring training,” said Schneider. “So Bud and I, one night, came up with a little bit of a competition to make it a little bit more motivating for the guys to go out and do it. So far so good.”

Schneider pointed to Clement as an accomplished bunter with catcher Tyler Heineman an all-rounder who “can do a little bit of everything.”

“I think Ernie kind of stood out just with the consistency in which he practised. When it’s eight o’clock in the morning in Dunedin (Florida), it doesn’t matter unless you get it done here. So I think the reps were good and he stood out.”

“Whatever it takes to help a win,” added Schneider, who admitted bench coach Don Mattingly helped with the pot. “If bunting helps us get a win tonight, money well spent.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 1, 2025.

© 2025 The Canadian Press

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