The Ongoing History of New Music, encore presentation: Stars’n’Cars’n’Rock’n’Roll

Next to music and my dogs, my biggest obsession is cars. I’ve always been a car nut. I’m one of those people with a list of cars I’ll buy when i win the lottery…

I’ll start with production sports cars. A Porsche 911 Turbo 4 will be my daily driver, although there will be a Lamborghini Uris SUV for those times I need to haul people and stuff. For those summer days, I think a McLaren 750s Spider would be cool.

I’ll need a car for track days, of course. No one else in the neighbourhood would have a Koenigsegg. I’d probably order the Jekso Absolute (1600 horsepower sounds about right.)

And just to show everyone that I’m not out to completely destroy the planet, there will be at least one EV. Right now, that would be a Rimac Nevera.

That’s what? Four million dollars’ worth of vehicles? Not including insurance and maintenance, of course. I’m never going to win that kind of lottery, but it’s nice to dream.

For other people, though, this is the kind of machinery sitting in their air-conditioned, highly secure underground garages. That includes a lot of rock stars.

Eric Clapton is so well-known at Ferrari that the company built him a custom one-of-a-kind model that probably cost him upward of five million. Neil Peart had a selection of very collectible sports cars from the 1960s, all in silver.

Brian Johnson of AC/DC has a bunch of Bentleys, Ferraris, and some classic race cars. Same with Nick Mason of Pink Floyd. He’s even written a book about this collection.

Then there’s everything we use in the car to listen to music. Radio, car audio, satellite radio, infotainment systems, and all that.

All this got me thinking about the relationship between cars and rock. The two things go hand-in-hand. We should look at this history, yeah?

Songs heard on this show:

Jonathan Richman, Roadrunner
Coldplay, Speed of Sound
Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, Rocket 88
Weezer, We Are All on Drugs
Greta Van Fleet, Highway Tune
Foo Fighters, Something from Nothing
The Clash, Brand New Cadillac
Blink-182, The Rock Show
Jamiroquai, Black Devil Car
Joy Division, Love Will Year Us Apart

Eric Wilhite has his usual playlist.

The Ongoing History of New Music can be heard on the following stations:

102.1 The Edge/Toronto – Sunday night at 7pm
Q107/Toronto – Sunday night at 8pm
Live 88-5/Ottawa – Saturdays at 9am and Sundays at 6pm.
107.5 Dave-FM/Kitchener – Sunday nights at 11pm
FM96/London – Sunday nights at 8pm
Power 97/Winnipeg – Sunday nights at 11pm
Sonic 102.9/Edmonton – Sunday at 8am and 8pm
The Zone/Victoria – Sunday at 8am and 9pm
The Fox/Vancouver – Sunday at 11pm
Surge 105/Halifax – Sunday at 7pm
WAPS/WKTL The Summit/Arkon, Canton, Cleveland, Youngstown – Mon-Fri at 9pm
We’re still looking for more affiliates in Calgary, Kamloops, Kelowna, Regina, Saskatoon, Brandon, Windsor, Montreal, Halifax, Charlottetown, Moncton, Fredericton, and St John’s and anywhere else with a transmitter. If you’re in any of those markets and you want the show, lemme know and I’ll see what I can do.