Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry

There have been many studies into the different types of music fans…basically, they can be broken down into four types… At the bottom of the pyramid are people who aren’t fans at all…they don’t like you or don’t care about you…they may not even know who you are…so for the purposes of this discussion, they don’t matter… The next level are casual fans…they sort of like you or your music, but they can take or leave what you’re selling…they have zero investment in your career… Going up another level, we have true fans…they love you enough that they’ll spend money on you…they’ll stream your music faithfully, buy physical product like CD’s or vinyl from time-to-time, probably own a t-shirt or two, and will go to your shows and have a very good time… At the very top are the superfans…superfans love, love,loveyou…they’re evangelists…they follow your ever move…they’ll buy everything…they’ll get involved and donate to your charitable causes…and they’ll go to all of the shows…they may total 10% of your total fanbase but are the source of the majority of your income—like 60, 70, even 80%...they are the top of the fan pyramid… From there, though, we can cross over to the dark side…this is where we find the fantasists, the deluded, the obsessed, the trolls, and the insane…they are dangerous people, a threat to you and the people around you…and they show up when you least expect it…and if they break into your online world, that’s a whole new level of terror… Have i got a story for you…The Linkin Park cyberstalker. Show contact info: X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross Website: curiouscast.ca Email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Music can be a powerful motivator…not just for individuals, either…if the message is strong and people are searching for truth, music can transform entire communities and countries around the planet…and its effects can long outlive its creator, inspiring people to action for decades… Bob Marley was one of those creators…not only can his music be heard in virtually every country, but his image is everywhere, too…I was in a rural village in Poland and while I was looking for somewhere to eat, I came across a building with a huge mural of Marley… The same thing happened when I was touring through the jungles of Indonesia…there was one shop in this one particular off-the-beaten-path settlement and it was all decked out in bob Marleyeverything… It’s universal, these messages of love and positivity and togetherness and righteousness…plus there’s just something about a reggae beat that amplifies the sentiment of the lyrics… Bob Marley remains one of the most beloved musicians of the last 100 years…so why would anyone want him dead?...there were more than a few people who wished that…they considered him dangerous, a threat, someone who needed to be dealt with before he interfered with their interests…the story involves social movements, local politics, and even players in the cold war between the U.S. and the USSR… The consensus was Bob Marley must die… Show contact info: X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross Website: curiouscast.ca Email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When rock music appeared in the 1950s, a lot of people were frightened…all this dancing and gyrating and hootin’ and hollerin’ was labeled “the devil’s music”…it beckoned youth down a dangerous path towards immorality and destruction… It encouraged disrespect of parents and elders…it spat in the face of strong traditional values…and this music could only lead to a rise in godlessness, which, of course, meant that everyone was going to hell… This kind of opposition was seen across the western world but was particularly strong in the united states…preachers railed from pulpits…politicians wailed about juvenile delinquents and their music…rallies were held, records were burned, and this new music was roundly condemned as the worst thing to ever happen to civilization… For the most part, though, young people ignored this histrionic caterwauling and keeping making and listening to rock…the anti-rock crowd grew even more apoplectic with the rise of the counter-culturalism of the 1960s and early 70s, blaming music for everything from long hair to the sexual revolution to drug use to opposition against foreign wars… Rock fans took it all in stride… “yeah, whatever…you’re over-reacting…our souls are perfectly safe…tell you what: you do you and we’ll do us, okay?”…and for about a decade, there was this uneasy divide separating rockers from the religious anti-rockers… Then in the 1980s and 90s, a portion of society lost its collective mind…to these people Satan was everywhere in music…his work and influence needed to be exposed and exorcised from culture… This wasn’t artistic expression…this was Lucifer’s sneaky way to seize the souls of the vulnerable, impressionable young…the antichrist was at work…evil demonic forces were everywhere…and nothing became more important that casting out Beelzebub’s rock music once and for all…it was nuts… …I’m Alan Cross and have I got some stories for…this is uncharted: crime and mayhem in the music industry…episode 5…the era of satanic panic Show contact info: X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross Website: curiouscast.ca Email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the spring of 1973, Led Zeppelin was the biggest live act in the world…on may 4, they started a two-leg, 34-date tour of North America, their ninth time on the continent…and they began to break records… There were 53,000 at the first show in Atlanta…the second show—played at Tampa Stadium in Florida—58,600 fans showed up, breaking the attendance record for a gig by a single band set by the Beatles at Shea Stadium in 1965… The tour wound through the U.S. south, out to the west coast and then back through the north, popping up to Vancouver for one Canadian show…the final three shows were booked for Madison Square Garden in new york on July 27th, 28thand 29th…these nights were also reserved for the filming of a concert film that would become “the song remains the same”… The first two shows—a Friday and Saturday—went off without a hitch…all they had left was one more concert on Sunday night and then they could go home… The band was exhausted…they were performing three hours a night…drugs and alcohol and groupies and dealers were everywhere…they had their own private jet which allowed the parties to continue between gigs… Meanwhile, the money flowing in was unlike anything any other act had every seen…peter grant, the band’s scary manager, had insisted that Zeppelin be paid in cash…only he and road manager Richard Cole ever saw the money… So who stole nearly $200,000 from the band’s hotel the night of that final gig?... Show contact info: X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross Website: curiouscast.ca Email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If there’s money to be made, chances are organized crime will want a piece of it…call it the mob, the mafia, the costa nostra, or “this thing of ours,” these groups, these families are close to the action in some way… Construction, drugs, alcohol, prostitution, protection rackets, gambling, loan sharking, tax fraud, stock manipulation, corruption of public officials, porn—you name it and there’s a boss and a family that’s looking for a taste if not for outright control… One thing that I didn’t include on that list is the entertainment industry…I mean, just look at the stories involving Vegas and Atlantic City…stories about movies and studios…and mobsters who are fans of the music industry… The mob has been involved in music almost since the beginning…as soon crime families began to evolve, consolidate, and exercise power in the late 1800s, hooks were put into performers, composers, venues, and later, record labels… Money came from shakedowns, skims, theft of copyright, counterfeiting, and fraudulent bookkeeping…businesses, careers, and lives were ruined…people got hurt…and some people died… Show contact info: X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross Website: ajournalofmusicalthings.com Email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At around 7:30 on the cold, rainy evening of Wednesday, October 30, 2002, someone walked into the lounge of a recording studio in Jamaica, Queens, New York and fatally shot Jason Mizell with a 40-calbire gun: once to the body and another to the head…he died instantly…and whoever pulled the trigger just walked away… This was big news…Mizell was better known as Jam Master Jay, the DJ behind Run-DMC—one of the group’s founders in 1982—and one of the most important hip-hop artists in the known universe… There were been witnesses—but they disagree on what actually happened…there may have been leads—but they all went nowhere…what happened to the security camera footage?…was it tampered with?...and why didn’t the police follow up properly?...for more than two decades, this cold-blooded murder has gone unsolved… Show contact info: X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross Website: ajournalofmusicalthings.com Email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The old days of air travel were quite risky…compared to today, the chances of your flight going down were far greater …every airport had kiosks and coin-operating vending machines where you could buy life insurance before you headed to the gate—you know, just in case you thought you weren’t going to make it to your final destination… 1977 was one of the worst years for accidents in aviation history…in addition to several violent hijackings every month—sometimes with fatal results—There were also passenger plane crashes with great loss of life…including the worst aviation disaster of all time when two 747s planes collided on a runway in the Canary Islands, killing 583 people. Frank Sinatra’s mother, the Prime Minister of Yugoslavia, and all but one member of the University of Evansville basketball team died in crashes… But then there were the events of October 20, 1977, when a rickety chartered plane went down in a swamp in Mississippi…on board were members of Lynyrd Skynyrd…six of the 24 passengers died, including singer Ronnie Van Zandt, guitarist Steve Gaines, backup singer Cassie Gaines, and assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick…both pilots also died… What happened? Have I got a story for you... Show contact info: X (formerly Twitter): @AlanCross Website: ajournalofmusicalthings.com Email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this one-of-a-kind true crime podcast, award-winning music historian and host of the chart topping Ongoing History of New Music, Alan Cross, takes you inside unbelievable stories from murder, to fatal plane crashes, to court battles, and even run-ins with the mob! You’ll hear about the dark side of world of music. Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry available every other week starting October 24. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices