Before record sales collapsed, everyone made most of their money from selling music. The idea of licensing your music for a commercial was considered the height of selling out. Today, though, this is considered to be a normal and necessary way of surviving as a musician.

But someone had to be first, right? But who?

It’s generally accepted that the Velvet Underground was the first true alternative band. And fifteen years after Lou Reed left the band, he might have been the first even alt-rock artist to “sell out” by licensing a song to a TV commercial.

In 1985, he appeared in an ad for a Honda scooter with his song “Walk on the Wild Side” in the background. He took some stick for it—that sort of thing just wasn’t done back then—but he did help start the destruction of the stigma of using actual songs in TV commercials.

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

True or false: Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers was in a band with Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten. True.

It was 1983 and the Chili Peppers were still an unknown group, and things weren’t going well. Flea thought maybe it was time to leave. At the same time, it just so happened that Johnny’s post-Pistols band, Public Image Ltd., was in LA looking for a new bass player. Flea went to the audition, which consisted of just him and the drummer jamming onstage.

Out in the audience in the dark was Johnny, who was listening intently. Flea completely blew everyone away and was offered the job on the spot–which he accepted.  All he had to do was come back in the morning and sign the contracts.

Flea went home but immediately had second thoughts. He and a buddy stayed up doing heroin all night–and at seven in the morning, Flea called Johnny and said, “No, thanks.”  Probably a good move, huh? Turning down the job, I mean. Not the heroin part.

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

If you spend any time at record shows or in record shops—anyplace you can find used physical products—you may stumble across some interesting counterfeit records.

A counterfeit release looks exactly like the real thing but was manufactured illegally by someone who is not the artist’s record label. This sort of piracy has been capped at the knees by the spread of streaming services around the planet, which has affected the sales of all physical products, including illegal stuff.

There are high-quality counterfeit CDs and LPs still to be found, many of which come from China and Russia.

But this is hardly a new thing. Even back in the 60s and 70s, there was something some record collectors call “mafia records.” These looked almost exactly like what you could buy in the store but were clever counterfeits. This was how some members of the mob earned.

Today, record collectors must beware of these fakes because they’re obviously not worth as much as the real thing.

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

October 14, 1982. It had been a cool autumn Thursday in Toronto, with light showers that had lingered for hours. In the Rexdale neighbourhood near Pearson International Airport, almost all the 1,500 employees at the Litton Systems plant on Cityview Drive had gone home for the night. Only a few workers and security guards remained. Traffic was steady on Highway 27, which also ran in front of the plant.

Just before midnight, a stolen pickup van with British Columbia plates pulled up next to the main building. In the back were 550 pounds of dynamite.

Fuses were set, and boom! The explosion blew off the front wall of the two-storey building. No one was killed, but four night-shift employees and three cops were hurt. A few people in passing cars were also hit by the debris.

The damage was severe, with some estimates putting the bill at $50 million. The bombers fled under cover of the night.

We’d later learn that five people were involved, including the former bass player of a fierce Vancouver punk band.

This is episode 75 of Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry. And this time, it’s the story of Canada’s punk rock terrorist bombing.

This is Episode 74 of “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry.” And this time, it’s the story of the mysterious death of Bobby Fuller.
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.

 

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

Here’s a trivia question.  Name two films that feature an on-screen appearance by The Tragically Hip.

Remember the curling movie, Men with Brooms?  The Hip shows up for about a second and a half as a curling team in the big bonspiel. If you blink, you’ll miss them.  All right, but what about the second film?

Trick question.  NO ONE has ever seen it.

Director Robert Altman shot a made-for-TV movie that acted as a pilot for a TV show.  It was centered around a rich computer geek who really wanted to be a guitarist.  At one point in the movie, he hires a group–the Tragically Hip–to play at a party.  However, the movie was never released, and no one (outside those connected with the production) has ever seen it.

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

As Toronto’s leading mayoral candidates criss-cross the city, pitching their vision ahead of this month’s municipal elections, voters say affordability, housing, public safety and transit are the top issues they want to see addressed.

More than 50 people are vying to lead Canada’s largest city for the next four years, but polls suggest it will be a tight race between incumbent Olivia Chow and councillor Brad Bradford in the Oct. 26 vote.

Chow’s key promises include measures to help lower grocery prices in the city, free lunches in schools and building more affordable housing units, while Bradford has pledged to freeze property tax rates in his first year as mayor and scrap the land transfer tax for homes under $1.1 million.

Ilham Saydna, who has lived in Toronto for 30 years, said many in the city are struggling financially and she will vote for anyone whose top priority is to make life more affordable.

“I am looking to see who is going to be having a good platform for food security because a lot of people are hungry right now, and people are going to food banks and they cannot afford to pay rent,” the North York resident said.

Saydna, who is a tenant, also said the city needs to do more to support renters, including redefining what affordable housing means.

While some voters have expressed public safety concerns, Saydna said she feels safe in the city because the crime rate is trending downward. Toronto police data show homicides, shootings and robberies have decreased this year.

Saydna believes homelessness is a far greater issue.

“If we tackle poverty and people’s needs, crime will go down,” she said. “If people are not properly housed and they live on the streets, you can’t blame them for trying to survive.”

Terry Chamberlain, who lives in the Don Mills area, said the city should do more to encourage building new housing.

“As long as the development is done in a reasonable manner and it fits into the area, I’m all for it,” he said.

Chamberlain said his neighbourhood is in need of a community centre and more facilities for children.

He said while public transit in the area is “quite good” and reliable, the city should lobby the province to extend the 15.6-kilometre Ontario Line subway currently under construction beyond Eglinton Avenue.

Ross Rowlands, who lives in the Beaches, said he will vote for a candidate who stands up to Ontario Premier Doug Ford, whom he criticized for his controversial decisions to ban municipal speed cameras and remove some bike lanes on stretches of major city roads.

“It’s terrible,” Rowlands, who cycles regularly, said of the planned bike lane removals. “It’s unsafe, and despite all the empirical studies that have been done showing that it makes roads safer.”

While Chow has strongly opposed the Ford government’s speed camera and bike lane removals, she and the premier have worked closely on many issues and Ford has described their relationship as “phenomenal.”

Rowlands also said he wants the next mayor to invest in preventive measures when it comes to crime and mental health, rather than spend money on what he called reactionary policing.

The homelessness crisis is another key issue in municipal elections across the province, but Toronto’s 10-year plan to open more shelters, including some outside the downtown core, has received mixed reactions, with some living in communities hosting them raising safety concerns.

One was built two years ago near Patty Wegrzyn’s home in Scarborough, and she isn’t happy about it.

“Everybody has a right to have a home,” she said. “But do not put homeless shelters where there are small children and families.”

Chow has said that her approach to reducing homelessness has been working, while Bradford said that his strategy would include more supportive and transitional housing.

Wegrzyn, who said she sold her home because she could no longer afford property tax increases, added that she will vote for any candidate who is more sympathetic to Toronto’s ratepayers.

“We’re all still coming out of the pandemic, half (of) these families … are struggling themselves trying to keep everything afloat, why raise taxes?” she asked.

Peter Formica, a Scarborough resident who lives in senior co-operative housing, said the city could sell the underused high-value properties it owns to address the issue of affordable housing for seniors. The city could also increase the supply of affordable housing by freeing up larger, underused units, he suggested.

Chow and Bradford have faced off in several debates so far, including one focused on issues in Scarborough, a district of more than 600,000 people often described as a “transit desert.”

The Toronto Transit Commission recently opened a four-kilometre Scarborough Busway connecting Kennedy Station and Scarborough Town Centre, replacing Line 3 train service that was shut down after a derailment more than three years ago.

The city hailed the bus-only roadway as a major achievement because it opened six months ahead of schedule. But for many Scarborough residents, that’s too little, too late.

Leonel Juan said he can’t wrap his head around why a subway line has been extended as far as Vaughan in the north, but Scarborough has not yet been fully integrated in Toronto’s transit system, nearly three decades after amalgamation.

The long-awaited Scarborough subway extension line is still years away from opening.

The Scarborough East Rapid Transit, an 18.6-kilometre light-rail transit, which connects Kennedy to Malvern Town Centre via the University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus, is still in the design phase nearly two decades after it was first proposed.

Formerly known as the Eglinton East LRT, the project has been marred by significant delays due to lack of funding and political disagreements, and Juan said the next mayor should expedite the work on it.

The city needs to address Scarborough’s housing shortage by allowing more development in the district’s waterfront areas, Juan said.

“Downtown Toronto or other areas of Toronto are being prioritized more so,” he said. “I think a lot of focus should also be placed on Scarborough.”

© 2026 The Canadian Press

All over Canada on Sunday, people prepared stuffing, began thawing turkeys and rummaged for the nice tablecloth for Thanksgiving dinner. Meanwhile, in one Quebec town, thousands gathered to celebrate a peculiar fruit: the pawpaw.

Warm October rays and bright fall colours lit up the town of Farnham, about 50 kilometres southeast of Montreal, for its second annual Pawpaw Festival, part of a larger movement honouring the sweet fruit.

With sticky fingers and bright faces, people scooped up heaping spoonfuls of yellow flesh from the mango-shaped fruit, amazed to hear some of these pawpaws were picked just around the corner from where they stood.

“It tastes like mango, banana, pineapple and caramel. It has every characteristic of a tropical fruit, even if it’s a native fruit. And it grows in our backyard here in Quebec — it’s pretty incredible,” said Vincent Renaud, founder of the non-profit organization Pawpaw Québec.

If fresh pawpaw didn’t fulfil the craving for this avocado-textured fruit, visitors could also sample the wide range of pawpaw products: candles, beer, pastries, hot sauce, and many more.

Gabrielle Boucher had attended the festival last year and was back with her family on Sunday. She was snacking on a pawpaw-filled arancini — an Italian rice ball.

“Everyone should plant (pawpaw) in their yard, so that maybe, some day, we eat less fruits from abroad, like bananas. It’s fun that we’re able to grow those fruits here,” she said.

At a nearby picnic table, Nicolas Leporé was enjoying pawpaw-flavoured poutine. His wife, Sabrina Chiminazzo, had just finished eating her grilled cheese — in which the melting cheese mixed with onion and pawpaw slices.

Leporé had heard about this fruit from television reports, and it piqued his interest.

“I’ve always been curious about the idea of trying to grow a tree at home. When I saw this festival was happening, I thought, ‘This is the perfect opportunity,’” he said.

The couple is heading home to the south shore of Montreal with a handful of seeds, as well as some fresh fruits and goodies to tide them over until they can harvest pawpaw in their own yard.

Some of the pawpaws for sale at the festival were picked by Renaud. The Farnham local has enjoyed fruit trees since childhood, and when a friend introduced him to pawpaws in 2019, he fell in love.

“It’s fantastic, so delicious, so interesting — I couldn’t believe it wasn’t better known, so I dedicated myself to making it known,” he said.

In 2021, he created a Facebook group for pawpaw enthusiasts that now has close to 23,500 members. Then, last year, he decided to launch the festival.

The first edition of the Farnham Pawpaw Festival drew 10,000 visitors, said Renaud. This year, he estimates 12,000 to 14,000 people attended the event. He said the festival has seen visitors from other provinces, from the United States, and even from Europe.

Quebec’s pawpaw festival is part of a larger movement around the sweet green-skinned fruit.

Rodney Dever, a pawpaw specialist from West Virginia, was in Farnham on Sunday to tell festivalgoers about the history and potential of the fruit.

“I’ve been speaking at pawpaw festivals every weekend since the second weekend of September,” he said.

“It’s great to just spread the pawpaw gospel.”

Pawpaw is native to North America and saw an upsurge in popularity in the early 1900s, but that interest died down around World War II, said Dever.

“The pawpaw got forgotten for a little while,” he said.

Part of its loss of appeal was that the pawpaw has a short shelf life, making it hard to sell in grocery stores.

“Once it’s ripe, after a day or two, it goes from the best fruit in the world to tasting like rotten bananas,” explained Renaud.

In recent decades, pawpaws have made their way back onto plates not just in North America, but all the way to Europe and Japan, where its hardy nature helps it grow in cooler climates, said Dever.

The return of pawpaws is also a return to local foods and ingredients. Dominique Lalonde, owner of the pastry shop

Kîsisam Patisserie, discovered pawpaw through Renaud and started experimenting with it.

“Within colonization, we’ve been told for so long that everything that we have available here isn’t good, right? And it’s kind of coming back to Mother Nature, coming back to the source, coming to Earth, and really reconnecting with those Indigenous roots,” she said.

On Sunday, Lalonde was selling pawpaw desserts alongside her usual cookies and pastries.

“We’re storytelling through a reconnection with these sacred ingredients. … I think those ingredients want us to reconnect with them — they want us too to bring them back to life,” she said.

While there are other pawpaw festivals, Renaud said Farnham’s is the only one where every vendor sells pawpaw products. And with a second successful edition under his belt, he is hoping to bring the tropical-tasting North American fruit to even more people.

“I think there’s good potential for it to become the Farnham international pawpaw festival,” he said.

© 2026 The Canadian Press

One person is dead after a weekend collision between a motorcycle and an SUV in Ottawa’s east end.

Ottawa police say a 21-year-old man who was riding the motorcycle died in the crash.

Officers responded to the collision on Trim Road, south of Watters Road, around 9:30 p.m. Saturday.

The female driver of the SUV sustained minor injuries and was transported to hospital.

Police are asking anyone who witnessed the collision or who may have dashcam or video footage to come forward.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Ottawa Police Service Fatal Collision Investigation Unit.

© 2026 The Canadian Press

A brand of turkey gravy sold in some parts of Canada has been recalled due to undeclared mustard.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) said Kevin’s Natural Foods issued the recall on Friday.

It said the product contains mustard, which is not listed on the ingredients label.

The product is sold in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

The CFIA said there have been no reported reactions associated with the product.

“Do not consume recalled products to which you are allergic or sensitive as they may cause a serious or life-threatening reaction,” the CFIA said. “Do not serve, use, sell or distribute recalled products.”

The agency is investigating and said it is working to verify that the product has been removed from store shelves.

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

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday that Russia has continued to strike Ukraine’s energy facilities even after U.S. President Donald Trump said a day earlier that the warring countries had agreed on an energy ceasefire in the 4 1/2-year-old war.

Speaking at the Warsaw Security Forum in Poland, Zelenskyy said Ukraine had learned through media reports that Trump had secured an energy ceasefire deal with Russia which would involve a mutual pause in strikes on energy sites. Zelenskyy said he would be willing to honor such an agreement, if Moscow did the same.

“We support it, but I have not heard approval of this proposal from the Russian side,” Zelenskyy said.

Trump’s brief social media post on Sunday claiming the purported agreement offered few details but said that the energy ceasefire took effect immediately, adding: “Do not break it!” On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov wouldn’t say whether Russia had agreed to such a ceasefire, saying only: “Contacts are ongoing.”

Zelenskyy said Ukraine had been “horribly surprised” when, following Trump’s announcement, Russia struck numerous energy facilities including a power plant in the northeastern city of Kharkiv as well as a gas production facility and a civilian gas station.

“It was clear that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin does not read Truth Social,” Zelenskyy said, referring to Trump’s social media platform.
Energy strikes have caused pain for both Ukraine and Russia

Trump previously announced a similar agreement on ceasing energy strikes that did not come to fruition. In a social media post on Sept. 14, he said both countries had agreed “not to hit” each other’s energy infrastructure, but offered no details on that proposal either.

Russia has used attacks on energy facilities in order to deny Ukrainian civilians power, heat and running water during the war, hoping to wear down public resistance to Moscow’s full-scale invasion. Ukrainian officials describe the strategy as “weaponizing winter,” and fear Russia could ramp up such attacks as cold weather approaches.

Ukraine, meanwhile, has launched strikes against Russian energy sites like oil refineries, sometimes deep within Russian territory. That’s prompted Trump to blame Zelenskyy for record U.S. diesel prices — rather than the U.S.-led war in Iran — and to strike a deal with Putin on Friday to import diesel from Russia in an attempt to bring fuel prices down ahead of U.S. midterm elections.

On Monday, Zelenskyy said Kyiv was ready to comply with Trump’s requests to stop striking Russian refineries if Moscow halted attacks on Ukraine’s energy system, and asked Trump to press the Kremlin to agree. He added that if Moscow does not agree to an energy ceasefire this winter, “we will respond.”

“We are waiting for the details of the conversation between the Americans and the Russians, and we are waiting to see what specific steps the Americans are ready to take,” he said. “This energy ceasefire can work, and it can become a major step toward ending the war.”

The European Union’s top diplomat on Monday welcomed the prospect of a pause in energy strikes in Ukraine, but said she sees no sign that Russia would be willing to respect it.

“We haven’t yet seen that also Russia will stick to it,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said at a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers in Luxembourg. “Personally, I would also welcome that the ceasefire would include people not being killed, not only energy.”

Trump’s deal with Putin to purchase diesel from Russia dismayed officials in the U.S., Ukraine and around Europe. A bipartisan group of six senators, including four Republicans, called on the Trump administration on Sunday to “immediately reverse course” on the deal, saying the U.S. should “not provide Putin with a financial lifeline” while Russia is killing Ukrainian civilians.

Kallas also pushed back on Trump’s comments on Saturday that it was time for Ukraine to get a new president and that Zelenskyy has not done enough to end the war. She said that now is not the time to hold elections in Ukraine, at least not without a ceasefire.

On Monday, Zelenskyy said holding elections in Ukraine was impossible during war time, especially with new Russian tactics involving attacks during both the day and night. He added, however, that he would be ready to work towards doing so if Ukraine secured a full ceasefire lasting at least 60 days.

In response, Kremlin spokesman Peskov said in a statement that in case of a Ukrainian election, Putin would be ready to halt strikes on Ukraine “specifically on election day,” and that Kyiv only wanted a 60-day ceasefire “to gather their strength, heal their wounds, and continue the war.”

Two people were injured in Russian daytime strikes on Kyiv on Monday, according to the city’s military administration, while falling debris from Russian attacks sparked a fire in a private residential building in the capital’s Darnytskyi district.

Debris also fell in an open area near private residential buildings in the Solomianskyi district, and on a warehouse building in the Darnytskyi district, with emergency services dispatched to the scene.

A Russian drone attack on the village of Pisochyn in the Kharkiv district on Sunday evening killed three people and injured nine others, including children, according to the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office. Investigators said the attack struck a densely populated area near apartment buildings and grocery stores and sparked a fire.

Ukrainian air defence forces shot down or suppressed 89 of 121 Russian drones overnight Monday, Ukraine’s Air Force said in a Telegram post. The attack involved one Kh-59 guided air-to-surface missile and 76 jet-powered Shahed-type drones, the statement said.

Strikes were recorded at 15 locations in Ukraine, while debris from downed drones fell at four locations.

The Russian Defense Ministry on Monday said its air defences overnight intercepted 151 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions as well as the illegally annexed Crimea and the waters of the Black Sea.

In a separate statement, the ministry said its forces overnight carried out drone strikes on Ukraine’s port infrastructure and a bulk carrier heading to Ukraine’s port city of Odesa with military cargo on board.

© 2026 The Canadian Press