In January 1996, Bono and his family were on vacation as guests of fellow musician Jimmy Buffett. Buffett had been extolling the awesomeness of genuine Jamaican jerk chicken, so the decision was made to pick some up.
The fact they were in Miami was no problem because Buffett had a Grumman HU-16 Albatross flying boat he called Hemisphere Dancer. He got it cheap from the US Navy and could fly it himself.
Buffett, Bono, his family, Island Records head Chris Blackwell, and a co-pilot piled into the plane and set course for Montego Bay. But once they arrived, the water was too rough to land, so they diverted to Negril.
However, this diversion was unannounced and when local authorities saw the plane, they assumed it belonged to another drug runner. So they opened fire. More than 100 rounds were fired at the plane with several hitting the fuselage and shattering the windscreen. Fortunately, no one was hurt, no one was charged, and everyone soon hightailed it back to Miami.
There’s no word on whether Bono got his jerk chicken.
The early days of punk were anything-goes times. The idea was to do virtually everything differently, especially you could be extra strange and provocative.
Enter The Cramps, a New York-based band that was a regular at the legendary CBGB. But their most famous show was with a San Franciso band called The Mutants. In 1978, the two of them journeyed to Napa to play a free show for the psychiatric patients at the Napa State Hospital.
The whole thing was captured on film and released as a 27-minute documentary called, We Were There to Be There. Why did they do it? To bring attention to government efforts to defund and privatize mental healthcare.
If you’re into the White Stripes and Jack White and you’re looking for the Holy Grail of those songs, you want a 7-inch single released on October 3. 1998, released on Italy Records, a long-gone Detroit label, and originally sold for six dollars. S
ide one features “Lafayette Blues” while the B-side is “Sugar Never Tasted So Good.” This was the second-ever White Stripes single and only 15 copies are known to exist. However, one of those 15 is very special.
Fourteen 14 were created by Dave Buick, the owner of Italy Records while one features the work of Jack White. While Buick’s versions sell for around $525 on the collector’s market, the Jack Version sold for sold for $25,000 US dollars in June 2026.
This makes it one of the most valuable singles in the history of vinyl.
It’s always risky when you corral a bunch of humans in a field for one, two, three days, or more. The promise is that everyone will have fun experiencing music and the company of like-minded music fans.
But humans being humans, things will go wrong. It could be something as common as bad weather. Not much you can do about that except do your best to prepare for that contingency, whether it be blistering heat or pouring rain.
But then there are cases where carelessness, negligence, criminal behaviour, and even terrorism destroy everything.
Once the dust settles and lawsuits are settled, promoters, venues, and music fans pick themselves up and move on, hopefully learning something from the disaster they survived—but others didn’t.
This is why it feels so strange that there are music festival disasters that people either don’t know about or have forgotten entirely.
This is episode 73 of “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry.” And this is the second half of stories involving music festival disasters that have been forgotten or swept from history, even though people have been hurt and even died.
In addition to the podcasts, you can hear Uncharted on these Corus radio stations (all times local):
Toronto: AM 640 (4-5 am)
London: 980 CFPL (4-5 am)
Vancouver: 730 CKNW (1-2 am)
Edmonton: 630 CHED (1-2 am)
Calgary: QR77 (770 AM) (1-2 am)
Winnipeg: 680 CJOB (1-2 am)
And don’t forget about my current national speaking tour that will feature a live Uncharted podcast presentation. Get your tickets here.
Pretty much all the songs we listen to today features multiple tracks of instrumentation and vocals. The term for this is “polyphonic.” But when did the idea of layering music begin?
The earliest evidence of a piece of music with two parts—at least one that was written down—is from around the year 900 when someone wrote something praising Saint Boniface, the patron saint of Germany. It was discovered in 2014 after the strange notation—a way of writing down music before the modern music notation was invented—was translated.
Musicologist now consider this composition, which appears at the end of a manuscript called Life of Bishop Maternianus of Reims, to have lain the foundations for Western music that have lasted for more than a thousand years.
An OPP cruiser sits outside of a press conference in Vaughan, Ont., on Thursday, June 20, 2019.
Andrew Lahodynskyj/The Canadian Press
A resident of California has died in Georgian Bay after Ontario Provincial Police say a vessel capsized over the weekend.
At approximately 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, the West Parry Sound OPP Marine Unit responded to vessel capsizing on Georgian Bay, north of Franklin Island. Police were assisted by the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre, Carling Fire Department and Killbear Marina.
OPP say the sole occupant of the vessel died and has since been identified as a 67-year-old from California.
The vessel has been removed from the bay and OPP says its investigation is ongoing with the assistance of the OPP technical collision investigation team.
The BC Ferries vessel Spirit of Vancouver Island leaves Tsawwassen, B.C., bound for Swartz Bay on Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
DD
British Columbia’s ferry operator says two people were pulled from the waters between the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island after their fishing vessel sank.
BC Ferries spokesperson Sheila Reynolds says the marine rescue happened Sunday afternoon following reports of people in the water.
Reynolds says two ferry boats — the Spirit of British Columbia and Coastal Renaissance — launched separate rescue craft and the two boaters were brought to the Tsawwassen terminal on the mainland.
The ferry service did not have details on the condition of those rescued.
The rescue operation delayed sailings, and Reynolds says delays were to be expected on other sailings late Sunday.
She adds that the ferry operator appreciates customers’ understanding for any resulting delay.
A gigantic Canadian flag hangs over the ceremonial entrance at the legislature as people walk about in Victoria, Friday, March 7, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito
GAC
An annual gathering of municipal leaders from across British Columbia opens in Vancouver Monday with the province’s Indigenous rights legislation high on the agenda, along with housing and public safety, among other topics.
The Union of B.C. Municipalities convention runs until Friday and president Cori Ramsay says the future of B.C.’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act will be top of mind for many of the nearly 2,000 expected delegates.
Ramsay says local governments are highly committed to reconciliation and have been working for years to build relationships with First Nations.
But the city councillor from Prince George, B.C., says uncertainty has stemmed from recent court rulings, including a successful challenge by First Nations to B.C.’s mineral tenure system
The B.C. Court of Appeal ruled in that case that B.C.’s Indigenous rights legislation, known as DRIPA, should be interpreted to incorporate the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into provincial laws with immediate effect.
Premier David Eby backed down on a plan to suspend or amend DRIPA in April amid strong opposition from many Indigenous leaders, while members of the provincial Conservatives have called for the law to be scrapped altogether.
Ramsay says delegates will also ask Eby’s government to reverse clawbacks in funding for community housing, deal with unprecedented mental health and addiction issues in communities across B.C., and renew funding for the FireSmart program aimed at boosting resilience to worsening wildfires.
Both Eby and B.C. Conservative Party Leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay and scheduled to attend the conference later this week.
Amid growing trade tensions with the U.S. and the ongoing war in the Middle East, Canada’s central bank held its key lending rate at 2.25 per cent while warning of risks to both growth and inflation. Jacqueline Hansen has more.
Statistics Canada says the annual rate of inflation was unchanged at three per cent in August as a slowdown in rising gas prices was offset by higher rent and travel tour costs.
The agency says gasoline costs continued to increase in August but at a slower pace, with prices up 22.8 per cent compared with 25.7 per cent a month earlier, as the conflict in the Middle East continued to weigh on prices.
Excluding gasoline, consumer prices rose 2.4 per cent last month.
StatCan says grocery prices increased at a slower pace than overall inflation for the first time in more than two years, with prices rising 2.8 per cent year-over-year.
But the agency says consumers paid more for travel because of a rise in fuel surcharges and as airlines adjusted to the sharp decline in Canadian travel to the United States in 2025.
It says rent prices increased 2.8 per cent year-over-year in August, up from 2.5 per cent in July.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 14, 2026.
Now that we’re starting our first full week after summer, we probably could use some fresh tunes to ease the pain. The Five Songs You Must Hear list features some appropriately aggressive stuff.
1. K.Flay, Ants Single (Bummer Picnic Records) Recommended If You Like: Fighting against adversity
Kristine Meredith Flaherty has a new album coming sometime in the near future, her sixth and first since Mono in 2023. It’s also her first album since she suffered some serious hearing loss in her right ear due to an inoperable nerve issue deep in her inner ear. This caused her to become totally deaf on that side and now requires a cochlear implant. The new album covers the emotions from that, as well as her newly sober lifestyle. If this first single is any indication, it sounds like it’s gonna be an emotional listen.
2. Scott Hellman, Mr. Record Label Single (Fo Fum Records) RIYL: Hating on your record label
Scott has seven JUNO nominations under his belt yet somehow (at least in his telling) didn’t get the appropriate respect from his record company. This song was written from personal experience. Here are some lyrics: “Mr. Record Label got a really fast car/And he drives into Hollywood/Parallel pakrs/And knows when he hears a “hit”/And he couldn’t write for sh*t.” This is destined to become a great screw-the-music-industry song.
3. Stuck on Planet Earth, Sun Gazing All But Nothing (Coady./Anthem) RIYL: Bands from the city above Toronto
Stuck on Planet Earth (est. 2007 Vaughn, Ontario) played live for years before they managed to release a debut album in 2020—which, of course, wasn’t the greatest time for the music industry. They were able to get back on track and now have a record called All But Nothing, which features collaborations with Brendon Benson, Jack White’s buddy in The Raconteurs. And yeah, there are some 90s feels here. Listen on Spotify
4. Bad Wolves, Jolene Single RIYL: Dolly Parton with a side of controversy
In January 2018, Bad Wolves was all set to record a cover of The Cranberries’ “Zombie” with guest vocals from Dolores O’Riordan. Before she could do that, she died. They released the song, anyway, and it became a hit. In August 2026, Bad Wolves was all set to record a cover of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene.” Then she died. They’ve released it, but before not guitarist AJ Rebollo quit the band, saying it was “too soon.” They released it anyway. Note to other artists: Reconsider collaborations with Bad Wolves.
5. Midnight Syndicate, Echoes of the Past Plankett’s Grove (Independent) RIYL: Horror music
This Cleveland band is all about horror. They describe themselves as “foundational audio architects of the haunt, Halloween, and tabletop gaming industries.” There are two guys: Edward Douglas and Gavin Goszka. This new album features 18 tracks designed to transport listeners into a shadowy realm of gothic mystery and dark fantasy…building on nearly three decades of pioneering ‘soundtracks to imaginary films.’” Listen on Spotify
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