Exploring Rock's Hidden Gems - The power of B-Side tracks

  Monday Madness: The Bizarre, the Strange and the Weirdest Rock Concerts Ever Rock and roll has never been particularly good at following instructions. Some bands play until the audience begs for mercy. Others walk onstage, make a noise, and disappear before anyone has had time to applaud. Some perform in ancient ruins, on rooftops or hundreds of metres beneath the earth. And occasionally, things go so spectacularly wrong that the audience becomes part of the show. Welcome to Monday Madness, where we're celebrating the bizarre, the strange and the downright ridiculous side of live rock. The Concerts That Barely Happened The White Stripes: One Note and Goodbye St. John's, Newfoundland | 2007 Jack and Meg White had set themselves the ambitious task of playing every Canadian province. By the time they reached Newfoundland, the duo had apparently decided that a conventional concert wasn't quite enough. For their free pop-up appearance, the White Stripes delivered a single C-sh...

  HA, HA, HALLOWEEN: THE HAUNTED SIDE OF ROCK & ROLL Cursed recordings, ghostly encounters and things that go bump in the night Somewhere between the last guitar riff and the final flicker of the studio lights, the music stops being the scariest thing in the room. Forget the plastic skeletons, the cheap cobwebs and the same old Halloween hits played until the neighbours threaten to call the police. We're going somewhere darker this year. Somewhere the corridors are cold, the recording equipment has a mind of its own, and the dead might just have something to say. Rock and roll has always had a complicated relationship with the dark side. Musicians have flirted with the occult, recorded in supposedly haunted buildings, and told stories of encounters that would make even the most hardened horror fan think twice about switching off the lights. Some of these tales come from the musicians themselves. Others have grown through decades of retelling, somewhere between genuine recollect...

  🎸 Hidden Gems: The October Mixed Bag 20 questions • 5 formats • One seriously eclectic playlist Welcome to the musical lucky dip! We've thrown out the rulebook, tipped the record crate upside down, and let twenty tracks escape into the wild. This month, there's no ridiculously long sentence to decipher. No single format to master. Instead, we're mixing picture clues, multiple choice, missing song titles, lyrical detective work and a few wild cards designed to test just how far your musical knowledge stretches. We've got psychedelic rock, Indonesian metal, British legends, South African talent, alternative heavyweights, garage-punk weirdness and a few unexpected detours along the way. Some answers might jump straight into your head. Others may require a little digging around the dusty corners of your memory. And remember, this is Hidden Gems. Knowing the biggest hit from a band won't necessarily save you here. Twenty questions. Twenty tracks. How deep does your cr...

  League of Legends: When Rock Icons Went Solo Eight legends. Eight musical departures. And a few records that slipped beneath the radar. There comes a moment in every great band's life when somebody wants to take a different road. Sometimes it's creative differences. Sometimes it's ego. Sometimes the songs simply refuse to fit inside the box that made the band famous in the first place. And sometimes, a musician who's spent decades playing to packed stadiums wants nothing more than to disappear into a studio, turn a few knobs, plug in a guitar and see what happens when nobody else is calling the shots. Going solo isn't necessarily about escaping a band. It can be about discovering what you've been holding back. Think about it. Remove the familiar bandmates, the established sound, the expectations of millions of fans and the record company asking where the next hit is coming from. What's left? That's where things get interesting. We're not here to re...