There are all kinds of shady and dangerous creatures lurking in the music industry. Since about the mid-20th century, the mob has found ways to extract money by getting involved in record labels, radio stations, artist management, and live music venues. Although things aren’t what they used to be, the mob’s involvement played a key part in the development of the music industry for decades. One of the key figures in all this ran a New York-based label called “Roulette Records,” which started business in 1957. One of the co-founders was Morris Levy, who got his start in jazz clubs. At his peak, Levy headed 90 companies employing over 900 people, including music publishing, the independent record label game, running record stores, operating record-pressing plants, tape-duplicating facilities, artist management, and a music distribution company. Some called him an “entrepreneur”…but the truth was Morris—“Mo” or “Moishe” to his friends (and a few enemies)—was a crook who controlled far more of the industry than people realized…and much of his business was connected to organized crime. Morris was probably the most mobbed-up music man in history…a lot of people were ripped off for tens of millions of dollars…and more than one person got hurt. I’m Alan Cross, and this is episode 47 of Uncharted...Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You don’t get much more Rock Star than Ozzy Osbourne. Through more than 50 years, his wild persona and crazy behaviour not only made him an icon of rock 'n' roll, but also a larger-than-life cultural figure popular with three or four generations. Given the abuse that he inflicted upon himself, it’s a miracle that he made it to age 76.  On this edition of Uncharted, we’re going to trace the insanity that was Ozzy from birth to death. And you can’t do that without honouring his music. He will be rightly remembered as the Godfather of Heavy Metal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Theft is rampant in the music world, and it takes many forms. Musicians regularly deal with stolen gear…guitars disappearing from stages, rehearsal spaces being robbed, or entire vans being emptied. These losses hurt, but they’re tangible…physical items taken by force or opportunity. Then there’s the more invisible kind of theft…the kind that bleeds artists financially. Fraud, embezzlement, and dodgy managers can silently drain income. In today’s digital age, streaming fraud has emerged as a new threat, with royalties being diverted through suspicious tactics. Identity theft, stolen song credits, and outright plagiarism all fall into this category, along with illegal file sharing and bootlegging from inside CD factories. But the rarest and most cinematic form of music theft? Stealing the recordings themselves right from the source, at the recording studio. Such a theft like this should be entirely impossible, yet this is what Green Day says happened to an album they were working on called “Cigarettes and Valentines”. They went into work on the record one day, and the tapes were just…gone! Green Day has always insisted that these tapes were stolen. However, there was never any police investigation, no suspects were named, and no trace of the tapes or the music contained has ever been found anywhere outside official channels.  This is episode 45 of “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry”… the real story behind Green Day’s stolen “Cigarettes and Valentines” album. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Before the internet, it was reasonably easy to just disappear. Get a fake ID, leave the country with some cash, and you were gone. These kinds of mysteries can also be found in the world of music; artists who disappear without a trace…and I’m not talking about musicians who retired and then become recluses…there are plenty of those. We haven’t seen much of Steve Perry since he left Journey…he’s very much alive but isn’t interested in being famous anymore…Syd Barrett tripped out on too much LSD, got fired from Pink Floyd, and was rarely seen by anyone until he died of cancer in 2006…John Deacon of Queen gave up his music career after Freddie Mercury died…we haven’t seen anything of him. Then there are the musicians who disappeared involuntarily…one day they were here and the next day, they were just gone…and this has happened a lot more than you may realize. This is episode 43 of “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry”…and the next of this program is “Missing and Presumed Dead”. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Getting your hands on a concert ticket can be a difficult (if not impossible) task...beyond the cost (which can be substantial), there are all the hoops one must jump through to secure a ticket. You must be computer literate, you need to be at your computer, ready to go when the appointed on-sale time arrives, and you must be prepared to jockey for position in the queue with other fans who are not just from your area but who are logging in from around the world. And then there are the scalpers, the crooks, and the shysters who somehow elbow their way to the front of the line to scoop up hundreds of tickets before you even get a chance to enter your credit card number. These people—and the tools they employ—cause all kinds of headaches and heartbreak among fans who just want to go to a show. And how they operate often involves tactics that are not exactly legal. So, who are these people who cheat their way to the best seats? And how do they do it? I’m Alan Cross and this episode 42 of “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry”. This time, our focus is on the tactics, misdeeds, and crimes of scalpers who prevent you from buying a concert ticket. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The music industry isn’t exactly the most moral or law-abiding place, either…if you know where to look, you’ll find crime all over the place. We’ve tackled this topic before…episode 4 of this podcast dealt with the mysterious disappearance of $200,000 of Led Zeppelin’s money from a hotel safety deposit box…there was the time when Joe Strummer and Topper Headon from the clash were jailed for stealing some pillowcases from a holiday inn…and another episode featured the epically violent theft of two of Lady Gaga’s dogs…  We’re going to build on those stories with more tales of people in the music industry who took things they had no business taking… I’m Alan Cross and this is episode 41 of “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry”…and this time, it’s some wild stories of robbery and theft. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the evening of February 25, 1682, Alessandro Stradella was stabbed to death in a square in genoa, Italy…Stradella was a classical composer of some renown…it appears he was killed by three brothers looking to avenge the honour of their sister…and when the knives were put away, Stradella became the first documented case of the murder of a professional musician.  Fortunately, the purposeful killing of musicians was a rare thing until we got to the 20th century…then came a string of shootings, stabbings, beatings, and strangling’s.  Some of these killings were high-profile—Sam Cook, John Lennon, Tupac, and Biggie, for example, and we still talk about those murders…but what about all the others?  Many have faded from memory because we’ve either moved on, the case didn’t get much attention, or the murder was solved and there’s nothing else to say…but the victims need to be remembered because they were human beings.  This is episode 40 of “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry”…this time, it’s a survey of musicians whose lives were cut short by someone with a gun, a knife, and even torture devices…and wow: there are some wild stories here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a show about censorship…wait, wait!...don’t run away…i know that can be a very touchy subject and once the arguments get started, all the grey areas fade away, everyone ends up in a big fight, and needless to say, the party breaks up.  Let try this from a different angle…there is an area of study i’m trying to promote called “stupid history”…learning about the past doesn’t have to be about memorizing dates, who fought what wars, who was king or queen or emperor when.  Humans are dumb creatures, and that dumbness is always on display…and this can be really, really funny…if more of this stuff was taught in history classes, we’d have more historians and writers and people curious about the human condition.  Let me give you an idea…instead of going through the details of the war of the roses, include this in a history less…in Britain in the 16th and 17th centuries, it was common knowledge that ground of bits of mummies stolen from tombs in Egypt was good for you…mix in a little chocolate and you have a nice little snack…so yes, cannibalism in powdered form use to be a thing…and this true: it’s why there aren’t many ancient Egyptian mummies around anymore. Here’s another…Andrew Jackson was the 7th President of the United States when he died in June 1845, his beloved parrot was thrown out of his funeral because the thing kept swearing. One more…Jack Daniels—yes, the bourbon guy—died of an infected toe…he stubbed it very badly when he kicked a safe to which he’d forgotten the combinations… See what i mean?...and here on “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry,” talk about some seriously grisly and awful things…let’s try something a little lighter for a change…  Yes, it is about censorship…but it’s also stupid history…it’s episode 39…and boy, this is one is dumb…it’s the insane true story of The Kingsmen and “Louie Louie”. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I once had a conversation with someone about the craziest tours in the history of music…the usual names came up.   The who trashing hotel rooms…led zeppelin’s tours with their private jet, groupies, and tons of drugs…that time in Atlanta when Ozzy drank himself into oblivion, passed out in the wrong hotel room for 24 hours, and missed a show as a result.   In 1976, ZZ Top tried to take the entire Texas experience on the road, which involved transporting real live animals to every gig…a buffalo escaped and managed to wreck nine rented limos that were parked at the gig.   Around the same time, there was the disastrous Sex Pistols tour of America…there were also stories about The Rolling Stones, Metallica, Van Halen, and all the usual suspects. But the conversation turned to the subject of the most depraved and dangerous tour of all time…who was responsible for that?... Motley Crue?...Marilyn Manson?...Oasis?   The debate when on for some time—until someone mentioned a road trip in 1993 that nearly killed every member of the group.   We’re not talking about any sort of violence…it was a tour featuring so much alcohol, so many drugs, and so much stupid behaviour that members suffered heart attacks, seizures, serious mental illness, and overdoses so serious that one member was clinically dead for two minutes.  That was a summary of something called “The Devotional Tour”…at the centre of it was Depeche Mode…it has gone down in rock history as “the most debauched rock tour ever”.   This is episode 37 of “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry”…an inside look at the tour that nearly took down Depeche Mode forever…and it was all their fault. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s happening with increasing frequency…we’re doom-scrolling, and we see the message…we wake up to read the news…we get a text from a friend…or we turn on the radio and hear what happened…another rock star has died…   This always comes as a shock…it’s mitigated somewhat if the rock star in question is older or has known health or substance issues…but when it’s someone young or seemingly healthy, it’s extra hard to deal with.   This was the situation on the morning of Saturday, March 26th, 2022…Foo Fighters fans awoke to the news that Taylor Hawkins, the band’s beloved drummer and Dave Grohl’s best friend in the whole wide world, had died.   This didn’t make any sense…the guy had the greatest job in the world…he loved what he was doing…he had Dave and the highly protective Foo Fighters’ organization to look after him…he was physically active…he had a loving family…he had supportive friends throughout the music industry and beyond…and any drug problems he had were at least two decades behind him.   Taylor’s death was completely unexpected and a complete shock to the entire music world…it was one of the most high-profile rock star deaths of the 21st century…but strangely, there are gaps in what the public knows about what happened…and when there are gaps, conspiracies abound.   This is episode 37 of “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry”…this is everything we know about the death of Taylor Hawkins…and it is quite the story Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you go to a concert or attend a festival, you have every right to expect to be reasonably safe…there’s security…there’s inevitably a police presence…and EMS people are standing by with their medical tents and ambulances. In the last 25 years, security has stepped up…there are bag searches, pat-downs, and maybe even drug-sniffing dogs and magnetometers…there is also greater attention paid to everything from the paths people walk to crowd control to monitoring the weather. It’s not that organizers want to the authoritarian about anything…it’s just business…the business of staging concerts involves following local laws…and then there’s the matter of insurance. When hundreds or thousands of humans gather in one place where alcohol and drugs are in use, dangerous and weird things can happen…people get angry, drug, high, and just carried away—and that leads to trouble. As the organizer of the gig, you do not want anyone to get hurt (or worse) because that inevitably will lead to legal problems and lawsuits. But sometimes imagination about what could go wrong fails us—probably because we can possibly conceive of something so horrible ever happening. Such was the case on the Las Vegas strip on October 1, 2017…it was a country music festival called “Route 91 Harvest” …things started as usual…but just after 10, the festival was transformed into a shooting gallery. By the time it was over, 60 people were dead and nearly 900 were injured… how?... A single gunman with an arsenal of weapons perched on the 32nd floor of a famous hotel across the street…it was the deadliest mass shooting by a lone gunman in the history of the United States. I’m Alan Cross and this is episode 36 of “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry” …it’s an account of the horrific Route 91 Massacre. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Chelsea Hotel sits at 222 West 23rd Street in Manhattan…since it was completed in 1884, the place has been a hangout for some very colourful characters…most were New York eccentrics and bohemians who needed a place to live…but it also attracted some famous people. At one point or another, it was home to sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke who wrote a big chunk of “2001: A Space Odyssey” in his room…later, Stanley Kubrick, the producer of the movie version of the book would stay there… Other long-term guests included photographer Robert Mapplethorpe stayed there…so did included beat writer Jack Kerouac, playwrights Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, and Sam Shepherd, actors Dennis Hopper, Uma Thurman, Elliott Gould, and Jane Fonda…plus, for extra colour, poets William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg—not to mention Andy Warhol and some of his crew. The Chelsea was also a favourite haunt of musicians…Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Leonard Cohen, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Tom Waits, Jim Morrison, Jeff Beck, Joni Mitchell, Alice Cooper, the guys in Pink Floyd, and many, many others. But the most notorious floor was floor 1…it was designated the “junkie floor,” the place where guests with drug problems were placed so that staff could keep an eye on things… This was where ex-Sex Pistol Sid Vicious and his American girlfriend, Nancy Spungen checked in…they were given room 100. It was in that room Nancy died…it looks like she was murdered...but by whom? ...Sid was charged with killing her, but did he?. This is “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry”…and this time, it’s the wild story of the death of Nancy Spungen and the questions that still remain decades later…around whether Sid Vicious actually did it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s right there…point four on the text downloaded to Moses’ tablet: “thou shalt not steal” …if you didn’t acquire something legally and morally, then it’s not yours and you can’t just take it…but humans being a thieving species, we need that spelled out in our religious texts and legal codes. Still, we steal a lot…money, food, clothing, cars, mobile phones, alcohol, drugs, jewelry, horses, razor blades—and music. There are two main ways to steal music: claim or copy something someone else has written as your own creation…or to illegally acquire a finished piece of music without properly compensating the creator and the owners who hold the rights to that song.  The music problem goes back centuries, but it became a global issue starting in the 90s…and there has been no end to people who willing to steal music or to facilitate its theft. I’m this time on “uncharted: crime and mayhem in the music industry,” we’re going to look at those people: the pirates who made stealing music possible and how they did it. These are some brazen, colourful, weird, and occasionally clueless people behind all that illegal (and often) free music out there…and boy, have I got some stories for you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s a summer night in 1998. Vienna, Austria. And petty thief Daniel Blanchard is about to carry out the heist of a lifetime. Stealing a crown jewel. The last remaining diamond Sisi Star. His plan? A daring night-time parachute jump. Daniel is no ordinary thief. His heists are ingenious, meticulously planned; his escapes from the law defy belief. And Daniel knows that if he can get his hands on the star, it will launch him into the criminal big-leagues. Daniel’s exploits unleash a relentless game of cat-and-mouse, as police track him across continents yet vanishes from their grasp.  What he doesn’t know is that the Sisi Star has a history. A dark history. Its original owner, the legendary Empress Elisabeth of Austria, used it to carve her own legacy of absolute beauty and power. That pursuit drove her to her very limits.  And now Daniel’s fate is fixed to that same star. But how long can Sisi’s star stay lucky for Daniel?  This is A Most Audacious Heist – it’s the story of a master thief, an intercontinental manhunt, and the jewel that changes everything. Contact: Facebook: @BlanchardHouseStories Instagram: @BlanchardHouseStories X (formerly Twitter): @BlanchardTweets Blanchard House website: blanchard-house.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TV has conditioned us to believe that crimes can be solved in less than an hour…a detective or two (and maybe even a whole team) is assigned to a single case, and they somehow manage to solve it over 60 minutes—43, if you deduct commercial time. That’s obviously not how it works in the real world…yes, some cases are solved quickly, but others take days, weeks, months, and even years…and then there are cold cases, crimes that don’t have any arrests, convictions, and in many instances, no suspects. The most famous case has to be Jack the Ripper…in 1888, at least five prostitutes were found carved up in the Whitechapel area of London…the killer taunted the cops but was never found…the list of suspects continues to grow, even today. There’s the infamous Black Dahlia murder in Los Angeles…the body of a woman named Elizabeth Short was found mutilated and cut up…despite numerous suspects, this case has remained unsolved since 1947. The Zodiac killer may have killed as many as 40 people in northern California in the 60s and 70s…he was never caught. And who killed JonBenet Ramsey on Christmas in 1996? … her body was found in the basement of her family’s house…despite years of investigation by professionals, amateurs, and documentary-makers, we still have no answers. I could go on, but you get the idea. The world of music also has its share of cold murder cases…and the circumstances around each of them are, as you might expect, rather bizarre. I’m Alan Cross, and this is “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry”…let’s explore some of the most infamous unsolved and unresolved murder cases in music history…and there are more than you may realize. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The world of rock’n’roll can be very, very strange…it’s loaded with strange creatures: performers, managers, fans, and various hangers-on…people get into the scene because there are (allegedly) no rules and rebellious bad behaviour isn’t just tolerated, it’s encouraged… There’s a sense in many quarters that anything goes and that the conventions of society and the law just seem to don’t apply…if you don’t participate, you don’t belong…you’re viewed with suspicion or distain…if that’s the case, you’re excluded… And let’s be honest: artists can be different…they are not like you and me… It’s not an insult to say artists are often wired in unusual ways, which is the thing that makes them artists…they think different, feel different, and as a result often act different that your basic civilian… Add in alcohol, drugs, and other mind-altering things and you end up with bizarre situations that end up attracting the attention of law enforcement and the courts… Many are minor indiscretions…misdemeanours that result in a warning and maybe a fine…but some of these actions and activities are extremely serious…they involve property damage, bodily injury—or worse… These are occasions where music, rock culture, fame, rebellion, and chaos get all mixed together with dangerous and sometimes deadly results… This is Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry, episode 32…and this time, we’re going to go through a list of some of the most bizarre music-related crimes in history… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’re largely immune to most the craziness that rock starts get up to…arrested for drugs?...yawn…got into a bar fight?...what else is new?...a DUI?...what, another one? There is a red line…anything to do with any kind of sexual assault is still properly greeted with revulsion…murder is still considered a bad thing…and if pedophilia is involved, there is no coming back from that. But once upon a time when all rock and roll was considered dangerous, any kind of bad behavior made the news and resulted in widespread condemnation in the media, from church pulpits, from teachers, and parents. The Rolling Stones built their early career on bad behavior…although they were good friends with the squeaky-clean Beatles, they were artfully positioned to be the anti-Beatles, the bad boys of rock’n’roll…it was all very clever and very effective. As mild as some of the stones’ offences seem today, back then, they were considered outrageous and dangers…the authorities—police, judges, politicians—really were out to get them. That is not an exaggeration…and in the process, the rolling stones amassed a very long rap sheet…there are no fewer than 13 instances where the stones were in big trouble with the police.  This is episode 31 of “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry” …let’s examine the impressive and decades-long arrest record of The Rolling Stones. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The holiday season is upon us and one questions is always present. Have you been naughty or nice? Depending on your answer you'll either be rewarded or you'll find a much more frightening fate will be upon you, and no, it's not a lump of coal. For centuries, disobedient children in Austria and other Alpine countries have faced a truly terrifying Christmas consequence for their misbehavior — a dreaded visit from Krampus. If you've misbehaved Krampus can be heard before he can be seen which makes him even more frightening. The joyful sound of sleigh bells will be replaced by something far more sinister: the menacing clanking of rusty chains accompanied by the eerie tinkling of cowbells. So be good for goodness sake because Krampus is coming to town. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

According to myths around the world, the devil is always looking for more souls…this practice isn’t anywhere in the bible, but there are plenty of accounts in other religions, literature, and art. For example, Dante’s “ The Divine Comedy, “ written in the 14th century, riffs on this concept. Other stories involve the devil and demons seeking humans to give up their souls in exchange for riches, favours, or the bestowment of special powers. These are the so-called “deals with the devil.” The best-known ancient example is the story of Faust, a German legend dating to the 16th century... a depressed and bored scholar attempts suicide... when that fails, he calls upon the devil to make things better. “Give me magic powers, knowledge, and a chance to indulge in all the pleasures of this world!”… The devil—known as Mephistopheles in this story—says, “Sure!... You can have all you want for a few years…but when time is up, you will give me your soul, and you will be my slave forever.” Faust says, “deal!”…and for a while, he gets everything he wants, including lots of sex…things inevitably turn out bad for him, and per his contract, he is carried off to hell—maybe…there are other versions of the story where he gains redemption and gets to keep his soul. So how does one make an appointment with the devil to sell their soul?...mostly, you meet him at a crossroads at midnight, discuss terms, and sign the contract. Over the centuries, sea captains, generals, and painters are said to have sold their souls in exchange for worldly things…and so have a number of musicians…the most famous of these stories is connected to blues musician Robert Johnson…it is said he made a deal with the devil and was bestowed with an almost supernatural ability to play the guitar. Robert Johnson eventually died at the age of 27…but what really happened?...was he murdered?...or did his contract expire? I’m Alan Cross, and this is episode 30 of “Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry”…let’s take a trip to the crossroads to see whom we find there…and here’s a hint: more than just Robert Johnson will be there. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices