Happiest. Dance Crazes. Ever.

It's Monday so you probably could use a little spring in your step.  If so, head over to Buzzfeed.

World Premiere of New Last Pogo Doc Coming to CMW

Along with the digital conference, the broadcasting conference, the music conference, the music festival and the comedy festival, Canadian Music Week also offers a film festival.  This is one of the docs I'm going to have to check out.

The Last Pogo was an event at the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto in 1978 that devolved into a riot. It remains one of the most legendary moments of the original punk scene.  The original Last Pogo film was a short one, running well less than an hour.  This edition runs a whopping 204 minutes.  Here's a chance to see how it all went down.

The Truth Behind Van Halen's "No Brown M&M's" Story

On a recent episode of The Secret History of Rock, I referenced the infamous story about how Van Halen once specified in their backstage rider that there were to be no brown M&M's served in the M&M's bowl. That story is true.

However, as I recounted in the show, Van Halen weren't being douchebags.  There was a solid reason behind this demand.  Peter was kind enough to send this excerpt from David Lee Roth's authobiography.

Van Halen was the first band to take huge productions into tertiary, third-level markets. We’d pull up with nine eighteen-wheeler trucks, full of gear, where the standard was three trucks, max. And there were many, many technical errors — whether it was the girders couldn’t support the weight, or the flooring would sink in, or the doors weren’t big enough to move the gear through.

The contract rider read like a version of the Chinese Yellow Pages because there was so much equipment, and so many human beings to make it function.

So just as a little test, in the technical aspect of the rider, it would say “Article 148: There will be fifteen amperage voltage sockets at twenty-foot spaces, evenly, providing nineteen amperes . . .” This kind of thing. And article number 126, in the middle of nowhere, was: “There will be no brown M&M’s in the backstage area, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation.”

Click to read more ...

The Worst #1 Songs on the Top 40 Charts of All Time

A stomach-churning list from Buzzfeed.  What's wrong with people?

Picks from the SXSW Film Festival

Along with the music festval and the gathering of tech geeks, South by Southwest includes a film festival with feature-length movies and documentaris as well as shorts.  The Hollywood Reporter picked Downloaded, the doc on Napster as one one of their must-see films.

I'm also interested in seeing I Am Divine, the story of the John Waters' favourite drag queen.  Anyone else remember the alt-dance hit "Native Love?"