No Sleep 'til Sudbury with Brent Jensen

Mojo and Q magazine writer Tom Doyle has written a new book called Ringo: A Fab Life, and this week he joins me to talk about it. 

In the book, Tom recounts Ringo's unusual path into The Beatles, but he also sheds light on the many other lives of Richard 'Ringo' Starkey, including the fact that he was also a furniture designer at one time, and that he had Frank Sinatra record a playfully rewritten version of "The Lady...

My pal Sean Kelly wears a few different hats. He's primarily known as a Juno-nominated guitarist who's played with Nelly Furtado, Lee Aaron, Coney Hatch, Helix, and several other acts. He's also a music teacher, and the author of three books.

He joins me today to talk about his newest work, the upcoming book entitled Battle Axes: A Hard Rockin' History of Pointy Guitars. The book examines the cultural and musical evolution of those...

After listening to last month's NSTS episode featuring the guitarists who auditioned to replace Ace Frehley in KISS, friend of the show and co-host of the Famous Lost Words podcast Tom Jokic dropped by the NSTS studios with a list of other interesting musical substitutions, featuring artists like Dave Grohl, Stevie Nicks, Lenny Kravitz, and The Doors.

According to Tom, Eddie Van Halen asked a well-known female singer to join the ba...

When Ace Frehley left KISS in 1982, a lot of guitar players lined up to take his place. Many of them, upon not getting the gig, went on to do great things. Two of those guitarists were Bon Jovi's Richie Sambora and Slash from Guns N' Roses. And, Eddie Van Halen was also rumoured to be in the mix.

This week on the show I consider the ramifications of all of this - rock history as we know it would be significantly different. Sambora ...

West coast band 54-40 is a group we all know and love up here in Canada. Last week 54-40 guitarist Dave Genn called in to the show to talk about their new record Porto, which drops this Friday, January 23^rd. I've heard it, and so should you – quite honestly, it's really good.

Here's the second half of my chat with Rik and Ian live from Rik's place. We couldn't talk about the upcoming Triumph tour as it hadn't been formally announced yet, and I was sworn to secrecy.

But, there was so much more to cover - the retirement of Ian's longtime band Lunch at Allen's, how Ian used to get accosted by women at his shows and the hilarious commentary that ensues, the lyrics Rik and Ian chose to be engraved in their C...

I joined Rik Emmett and Ian Thomas at Rik's home recently to talk to them about being inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame together. This episode is the first of two parts. 

The conversation was fantastic, complete with a look back on the ceremony, plenty of fascinating details about their songwriting tendencies, how Rik and Ian's mothers taught them how to sing harmonies, the fact that they both had a hit calle...

And now for something completely different!

Catherine Fearns is a fascinating human being. Hailing from Liverpool and joining me from Geneva, Switzerland, she's a pianist, a composer, a guitarist, an author of six books, and an absolutely wonderful person to talk music with. 

I contacted her because of a stunning video I saw on YouTube of her playing an Iron Maiden song on the piano, masterfully so. One of the most compelling ...

Terrible news recently that one of rock's most authentic guitar players, Ace Frehley, passed away unexpectedly. I was obsessed with Ace and KISS as a kid, and they provided me with a lot of great memories from back then. 

CHUM-FM producer and Famous Lost Words co-host Tom Jokic joins me in person to dig through those memories, he being a massive Ace fan as a child himself. Together, we go through our top Frehley songs and rumi...

The country music genre has undergone some pretty significant changes, with some particularly radical shifts coming within the last few years. Bree Taylor is an artist that embraces those shifts. She's been described as a cross between Carrie Underwood and Joan Jett, infusing her brand of country with a rock and roll grit that's getting a lot of attention lately. 

Bree joins me on NSTS this week to bring me up to speed on wher...

It's that time, folks. Time to set everything else aside and really think about why Night Ranger never quite reached the same heights of fame as their rock brethren. 

Was it the clothes? The saccharine? The genre confusion? Tim Durling, author of Sing Me Away: The Night Ranger Album Review, is here to help us make sense of the mystery that is Night Ranger - why didn't the band who wrote "Sister Christian" and "Don't Tell Me Yo...

Heavy episode. Songwriter and producer Rob Wells has worked with some of the industry's biggest stars - Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Adam Lambert, and loads of others. He feels music. In this episode Rob drops by my studio and there are laughs, misty eyes, and some really meaningful musical insights. 

Rob talks about how he almost killed Dave Grohl at The Grammys, the day he met his producer idols in LA, and how his very spec...

In a lot of ways, the No Sleep 'til Sudbury podcast was created for people like this week's guest, emerging singer songwriter Becky Prokova. The range of emotions she evokes with her song selection is deep, and the stories she shares to accompany them are equally compelling - how she moved to LA to become a star, breaking swim records with Switchfoot, crashing cars with Coldplay, and her granting of her grandfather's wish. 

Be...

Here's part two of the two part series featuring Rik Emmett live at Black Bellows in Collingwood, hosted by NSTS. 

In this set, Rik takes us through some songs by Jimmy Webb and Brian Wilson (RIP) that he wishes he'd written, along with insights into how they were composed. We also go through some Triumph material and the stories behind those songs, and wrap up with a Q&A with the audience. This was an incredible evening, ...

As the host of No Sleep 'til Sudbury for the past eight years, I've been fortunate enough to enjoy some pretty gratifying experiences. This one ranks up there with all of them. 

Doing the show live in front of an audience was something I'd always wanted to do, and to do it alongside the legendary Rik Emmett just made it that much more unforgettable. Rik has always been one of my favourite guests, and as he always does, he made...