A thousand years ago, I read an interview with Tom Hamilton, the bass player of Aerosmith. He was asked why he chose that instrument over anything else, and his reply stuck with me.

Paraphrasing Tom, he said that the bass is the bridge between the drums and the guitar. The bass has percussive elements and is often used to emphasize the beat. A bass player and a drummer who can lock together is an amazing thing and can turn an okay band into something awesome.

But the bass also has melodic characteristics. A great bass player can also underscore what’s happening with the guitar and even the vocalist. Listen to what Paul McCartney did with the Beatles or how John Paul Jones subtly and effectively added more power to Jimmy Page’s riffs.

If you’re gonna rock, you need bass. That bottom end is the sonic scaffolding upon which everything is built. Without it, things sound thin. And I’m looking at you, Metallica, and your ...And Justice for All album.

Like, come on. I mean, it’s a fine metal record, but it would have been so much more powerful if you’d turned up Jason Newsted in the mix. But noooo! James and Lars ordered that Jason be pushed way down in the mix, so he’s pretty much inaudible. They said, “Oh, our ears were just fried from touring, and we just kept pushing up the treble so we could hear it. And in the process, the bass just disappeared. Sorry… our bad.”

Right. It was ego, and you know it.

If you want an alternate universe for this album, just look for a fan project called And Justice for Jason.

Anyway, I digress. What we’re here for is part two of a look at the most important bass players in the history of alt-rock. And you’ll be able to hear each and every one of them.

Songs  heard on this show:

• The Stranglers, No More Heroes
• Talking Heads, Life During Wartime
• The Smiths, This Charming Man
• Primus, Tommy the Cat
• Radiohead, The National Anthem
• Green Day, Longview
• Pearl Jam, Jeremy
• Rage Against the Machine, Killing in the Name

Here’s Eric Wilhite’s playlist.
The Ongoing History of New Music can be heard on these stations:

• 102.1 The Edge/Toronto – Sunday night at 7pm
• Q107/Toronto – Sunday night at 9pm
• Live 88-5/Ottawa – Saturdays at 9am and Sundays at 6pm
• 107.5 Dave-FM/Kitchener – Sunday nights at 11pm
• FM96/London – Sunday nights at 8pm
• Power 97/Winnipeg – Sunday nights at 10am and 10pm
• 107-3 The Edge/Calgary – Sundays at 10am and 10pm
• Sonic 102.9/Edmonton – Sunday at 8am and 8pm
• The Zone/Victoria – Sunday at 9am and 9pm
• The Fox/Vancouver – Sundays at 10am and 10pm
• The Goat Network/Interior BC
• WAPS/WKTL The Summit/Arkon, Canton, Cleveland, Youngstown – Mon-Fri at 9pm

© 2026 Corus Radio, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Is there a correlation between being a psychopath and the music they like? That’s what a study at New York University set out to explore.

About 200 students were given a questionnaire designed to gauge their level of psychopathy. Among the questions were “For me what’s right is whatever I can get away with.” That’ll give you an idea of what character traits they were looking for.

After determining who in the group had psychopathic tendencies, researchers then gave everyone a music preference test. Those with the highest psycho scores tended to like “Lose Yourself” by Eminem and “What Do You Mean” by Justin Bieber. Non-psychos preferred “Money for Nothing” from Dire Straits and “My Sharona” from The Knack.

Does this mean music preference can be used to determine whether or not you’re a psychopath? Not yet, but more study needs to be done.

© 2026 Corus Radio, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Scientists are fascinated by how the brain processes music. How, for example, was Gord Downie able to eventually relearn the lyrics to 90 Tragically Hip songs for the band’s final tour even though he had a temporal lobe and hippocampus were surgically removed? Maybe it’s because musicians have better memory abilities than non-musicians.

And we’re talking about both short-term and working memory. They also have a slight edge when it comes to long-term memory. This came out of a study in Italy that used data collected back to 1987. But here’s the thing: scientists can’t explain why musicians’ memory is superior. The only thing they can come up with is “the multi-sensorial nature of music training.”

Another reason to make sure your kid takes music lessons, right?

© 2026 Corus Radio, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

When David Byrne was with the Talking Heads, he was determined that the band always be ahead of their time. But there was one occasion when the band was too far ahead.

The 1988 album Naked was released “graphics ready.” This meant that if you were to buy a CD player with a special decoder, you could watch the lyrics of the songs pass by in real-time on your television. You could also watch a list of which instruments were playing when.

Unfortunately, these special CD players were not available in 1988—and many people have totally forgotten about this.  And come to think of it, technology and technological standards have changed so much since then.

Today, there might not be a piece of consumer electronics anywhere that can properly decode this part of the Talking Heads disc.

© 2026 Corus Radio, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

What comes to mind when you think of Manchester: the Smiths, the Stone Roses, Oasis, New Order, Joy Division, karaoke.

Wait–what? Karaoke?

Along with some great music, Manchester was also the birthplace of the karaoke machine.  In 1975, an inventor named Roy Brooke built something he called “Roy’s Sing-a-Long Machine.”  The concept was simple.  A cassette machine played an instrumental version of a popular song while someone sang along into a microphone.  Both the music and the singing were funneled into one amplifier and one speaker—and suddenly, anyone could be a singer.

A Japanese company then picked up on the idea, renamed the machine “karaoke,” which means “empty orchestra”–and life, as we know it, has never been the same since.

© 2026 Corus Radio, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Hardcore Radiohead fans know that the group used to be called On a Friday.  They chose that name because that was the only day on which they could practice.

They stuck with On a Friday through their first recording sessions and through a series of live shows in 1991.  One of these shows was reviewed by a critic from Melody Maker, one of the very powerful weekly music tabloids in England.  He loved the sound of the band but declared that their name was terrible.  He wrote that the name was “best suited for beer-gutted pub rockers.”  And although On a Friday was initially insulted, they, to their surprise, found that they agreed.

It was then that they changed their name to Radiohead after a song entitled “Radio Head” on the Talking Heads 1986 album, True Stories.

© 2026 Corus Radio, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Alberta’s justice minister is pouring cold water on Elections Alberta’s request to delay the next provincial election as concerns over changes to electoral boundaries continue.

In a letter to Elections Alberta, Justice Minister Mickey Amery said the government has “no intention of changing” the date of the provincial election, which is legislated to take place on or before Oct. 18, 2027.

“Alberta’s fixed election date is established by law and provides Albertans with certainty and predictability concerning the democratic process,” wrote Amery.

His letter was in response to Chief Electoral Officer Gordon McClure, who wrote to Speaker Ric McIver suggesting the election either be held with the current electoral boundaries or be postponed.

McClure said in a letter, shared by the Opposition NDP, that either option would give the elections body sufficient time to hold the vote with integrity and safeguards in place.

A contentious report is set to be released this week on new electoral boundaries that the NDP previously said amount to gerrymandering in two cities in southern Alberta – Lethbridge and Calgary.

Gerrymandering, a practice more often seen in the U.S. than in Canada, involves designing voting districts not to reflect geography or population patterns, but to concentrate or fragment voters to benefit a political party.

Though the report has yet to be released, Opposition Leader Naheed Nenshi made the gerrymandering allegation after he was briefed on the report.

Two members of the committee that wrote the report also said the suggested ridings draw a line between rural and urban voters.

The report has been put before an all-party legislative committee and is set to be tabled Monday in the legislature. But McClure cautioned that disagreements could create delays.

A typical provincial vote, McClure said, requires up to 18 months of preparations. He added his agency has been stretched thin.

Amery argued in his letter that the legislature will consider the full report and determine the final electoral boundaries before the end of the fall sitting.

“That timetable will provide your office with approximately 320 days (about 11 full months) to prepare for and administer the next provincial election,” Amery wrote.

He added Alberta law doesn’t guarantee Elections Alberta “lengthy advance notice” of a general election.

In 2024, Smith’s government moved the fixed election date every four years from May to October to avoid clashing with major natural disasters like wildfires or floods which are more common in the spring in Alberta.

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

A veteran whose daughter died during a military training exercise in 2002 has been named the 2026 National Silver Cross Mother.

The Royal Canadian Legion says Virginia Hicks will place a wreath at the National War Memorial in Ottawa on Nov. 11, an annual tradition on behalf of Canadian mothers who have lost a child serving in the Canadian military.

Hicks’ daughter Mariebeth Short died on Sept. 23, 2002 during a training exercise in Petawawa, Ont., when the light armoured vehicle she was training in rolled over.

The Royal Canadian Legion says Hicks’ family has a long history of military service and she served in the Canadian Armed Forces for 29 years, working in supply and logistics.

This year’s Remembrance Day ceremony comes just weeks after four Canadian soldiers were killed and dozens more were injured during a training exercise at CFB Wainwright in Alberta.

Sgt. Morgan Wong of Edmonton, Pte. Shaun Farrell of Prince Albert, Sask., Pte. Aidan Goulding of North Vancouver and Pte. Hayden Lykkemark of Langley, B.C., were killed in a grass fire last month.

Strong, sudden winds propelled the nearby fire toward 84 members of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry who were conducting two exercises in the military base’s training area, about 200 kilometres southeast of Edmonton.

Prime Minister Mark Carney said that the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service is leading a full investigation into the tragedy with support from the RCMP.

Hicks says she has much in common with all mothers who have lost a child serving in the military.

“We all share the same sorrow, we all share the same bravery, and same love and respect for our children as we do for any other child who has passed,” she said in a statement.

© 2026 The Canadian Press

A business jet carrying nine people nose-dived into a South Florida neighborhood Sunday and erupted into a giant fireball that appeared to just miss homes before crashing near a busy roadway, creating a giant fiery crater in the pavement.

The aircraft had departed Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas and was headed to the Bahamas, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Authorities did not immediately say what caused the jet to go down or who was on it.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed on social media that all nine people on the Learjet 60 plane were killed. He did not comment on whether any injuries or deaths had been reported on the ground in Palm Beach County.

He said the FAA was sending a team to the scene to support the National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) investigation.

Jim Reynolds, a spokesperson for Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, said it was a private aircraft. He could not immediately provide details about who was on the flight.

“This is definitely a tragedy,” he said.

He said the tail number for the flight was N722BD.

Video shot from people inside their cars captured the terrifying moment the aircraft plunged from the sky, before striking near the roadway and exploding. Flames flickered around chunks of pavement lining the crater as people milled about, expressing shock it landed only feet from homes and only inches from passing vehicles. Thick black smoke engulfed the crash site.

It was unclear if the crash caused any damage to homes.

The crash occurred near Military Trail and 10th Avenue North. The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office closed roads in both directions and urged motorists to avoid the area. Firefighters and other emergency personnel rushed to the scene.

A woman working nearby said electricity in the area had been out for approximately two hours following the crash.

The circumstances of the crash remained under investigation.

—with files from Global News’ Sean Previl

© 2026 The Canadian Press

Online reviews can help people decide what to buy, but business owners and consumer watchdogs say some are confusing customers because they’re not actually real.

For Charlotte Ashley, who runs Trident Booksellers and Cafe in Halifax, fake reviews have led customers to request items the business doesn’t even carry.

“Maybe they want menu items that we don’t serve,” said Ashley. “People are disappointed and that’s not the kind of visit that we want them to have at our business.”

Ashley pointed to one such review posted on Google that gave the business five stars but also said the supposed customer got a mushroom quesadilla that the cafe doesn’t serve.

She’s unsure what has caused the fake reviews to pop up on her business’s page or the motive behind them.

But fake reviews are far from new, with a report by the Canadian Anti-monopoly Project showing there’s a market for them on Google and Amazon.

The report says fake reviews harm three groups: consumers because they “obscure” the true quality of the service or product; honest sellers because the reviews put them “at a clear disadvantage”; and platforms if consumers lose trust in them.

“There is a substantial market for fake reviews operating kind of in plain sight and it affects customers who are looking at reviews on all sorts of platforms,” said Emily Osborne, a fellow at the project and policy researcher at the Canada Shield Institute.

Osborne said fake reviewers can be recruited in various ways, including through social media groups.

She said a third-party seller could ask reviewers to post a five-star review potentially in exchange for a free product.

Companies such as Amazon have acted to take down fake reviews, Osborne noted.

Osborne told Global News the Canadian government needs could do more to hold the platforms more accountable.

“I think there’s some space for Canadian policymakers to require better enforcement against fraud on platforms,” she said.

There are posts that exist on social media by “professional review providers,” with a list of prices provided with some offering 100 reviews for $180.

Kay Dean, a U.S.-based consumer watchdog, says the marketplace for fake reviews is “immense.”

“It’s just shocking how immense the problem is, I believe it distorts the whole small business economy globally,” said Dean, who started Fake Review Watch, a website and YouTube channel where she posts her investigations and research. Dean is a former federal prosecutor.

She said her investigations have found businesses bartering and trading reviews with each other on social media. She’s also found marketers and search engine optimization companies with “networks of profiles” that post negative reviews.

“So there’s just a variety of ways to procure fake reviews, it’s very, very easy and inexpensive,” she said.

The exact number of fake reviews online is difficult to determine. But a 2023 report by the U.K. government found 11 to 15 per cent of all reviews on e-commerce platforms for three common product categories were likely fake. Product categories typically included consumer electronics, home and kitchen, and sports and outdoors.

It also found well-written fake reviews can distort consumer decision making, with buyers 3.1 per cent more likely to purchase a product.

There are things people can do to take precautions when shopping, including using caution when “flawless” ratings are given. Experts say the best advice comes through word-of-mouth.

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.