Back when Pearl Jam was at their height, they had the clout to do anything they wanted. Anything.

On September 26, 2000, the band released 25 double CD live albums—what they referred to as “official bootlegs”—featuring performances from virtually every show they played on European tour in support of their Binaural album. Of those 25, five immediately made the top 200 album chart. This was the first time any act ever saw more than two new albums show up on the chart in the same week.

Two other sets just missed the cut. Had they made the charts that week, Pearl Jam would have joined The Beatles, The Monkees, and U2 as the only acts to that point with seven albums on the charts at the same time.

This was decades before Taylor Swift came along.

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Looking for a driving song? This one from Liverpool’s It’s Immaterial (especially in this 12-inch iteration) fits the bill. It began with a full-on country-and-western vibe recorded with the Talking Heads’ Jerry Harrison, but the band didn’t like it. They returned to England to re-record it while Harrison took his name off the project.

The song’s full title is Driving Away from Home (Jim’s Tune). The “Jim” is Jim Lieber, a harmonica player in a blues band the group saw while in Milwaukee. He’s the guy we hear on the recording.

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A question from new parents: “Should I expose my baby to live music?” The answer is “yes.”

A recent study at the University of Toronto revealed that infants have longer attention spans when experiencing live music. Sure, you might want to give them an iPad to stare at, but that apparently doesn’t work as well as live music. Videos don’t captivate them a whole lot but live music elicits physiological changes like a synchronization of heart rate to the music.

The final conclusion? “Findings suggest that performer–audience interactions and social context play an important role in facilitating attention and coordinating emotional responses to musical performances early in life.”

The big caveat? Volume. The live music cannot be too loud for those delicate little ears.

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Here’s some very fresh melodic punk from Calgary. Bring the Storm has spent the last while gigging throughout Canada and should have a debut full-length record in early 2024. If you’re into anything from Sum 41 to Billy Talent to Three Days Grace, here’s something here for you.

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The Flaming Lips are certainly unconventional and experimental. One of their weird projects was a very, very long song called “7 skies H3” which, in its original form, ran for 24 hours.

It consisted of several separate pieces, each running anywhere from 25 minutes to seven hours. If that wasn’t enough, just 13 copies were released on flash drives that were encased in actual human skulls. They went on the market (appropriately) on Halloween 2011 and cost $5,000. And yes, they sold them all. If you can’t find your own copy—imagine that—they also set up a website with the song on a continuous loop.

And if you would rather have a physical copy, there is an edited version that runs 50 minutes and was released for Record Store Day 2014.

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North London four-piece Sorry released an album entitled Anywhere But Here about a year ago to considerable acclaim. The second-last track on that record was entitled Screaming in the Rain. This fall, they’ve re-recorded that song under the title Screaming in the Rain Again which is harder, faster, and stronger than the original. There’s a new video, too.

© 2023 Corus Radio, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Back in the 1930s during the Great Depression, there was a phenomenon known as the dance marathon. Basically, couples would take up a challenge to see who could remain dancing longer than anyone else. They were held in ballrooms and auditoriums and could continue for not just hours, but days and even weeks.

Spectators paid to watch, too. The longer the marathon went on, the higher the admission price. Couples had to stay in motion continuously resulting in blisters, injuries, and collapse from exhaustion.

Why would anyone subject themselves to such a thing? Like I said, it was during the Depression. Many people signed up for these marathons because it meant food, shelter, and a place to sleep, even if it was just a few minutes an hour. Those who won were given a cash prize. Hey, the Depression was rough. People were willing to do anything to survive.

© 2023 Corus Radio, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

The first Black person appointed to the B.C. Bench has died of cancer, according to the family of Selwyn Romilly.

His relatives say he passed away last Friday at his home, surrounded by loved ones.

Romilly was born in Trinidad and Tabago in 1940. He moved to Canada in 1960 where he earned a bachelor of arts and a law degree from the Peter A. Allard School of Law at UBC.

That’s where he also met his future wife Lorna. The pair then moved to Smithers where they raised two children.

Two of his brothers also moved to Canada around the same time with his brother Valmond also working in the legal profession and eventually becoming a judge as well.

Romilly worked as a lawyer from 1967 until 1974 when he was appointed a provincial judge.

In 1995, he was appointed to the B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver becoming the first Black judge named to the province’s highest court, where he served until 2015.

Upon his retirement in 2015, Romilly was honored at Vancouver city hall and a gala was held by the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers.

His family said Romilly was a kind, gentle soul and a trailblazer.

Romilly’s relatives added there are no words to express what he meant to the community.

In 2021, Romilly was wrongfully detained and handcuffed by Vancouver Police officers while on a morning walk in Stanley Park.

At the time, officers said they were looking for a dark-skinned man in his 40’s or 50’s.

“I thought things had changed and they haven’t,” Romilly told Global News of the incident.

“I hate to say racial profiling, but I can’t help but think if it was an 81-year-old white man, regardless of the description, they wouldn’t have put him in handcuffs for ‘officer safety.’”

In a statement, the then mayor of Vancouver, Kennedy Stewart, said he was “appalled” by the incident.

I am appalled by the wrongful handcuffing and detainment of retired Justice Selwyn Romilly and have reached out to apologize.

Systemic racism is a reality of our colonial institutions. Incidents like this are unacceptable and cannot continue to happen. #vanpoli pic.twitter.com/WAA2YyFucV

— Kennedy Stewart (@kennedystewart) May 15, 2021

The incident did cause the VPD to change their handcuffing policy.

Now, officers who use force will be legally responsible for their actions and cannot view handcuffing as a routine action.

Romilly was 83 years old.

© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Laurent Brossoit made 26 saves as the Winnipeg Jets scored a 5-0 pre-season win over the Edmonton Oilers Monday night.

Kyle Connor scored the only goal of the first period, ripping a power play shot past Calvin Pickard.

“It’s always good to get work,” Pickard said after the game. “I got that tonight. Obviously, it kind of fell off at the end. You’d like to have maybe a couple of those goals, but it’s still the first game of the year and preseason is to work out the kinks and we’ll get better moving forward.”

In the second, Xavier Bourgault just missed tapping in a goal-mouth pass from Noel Hoefenmayer.

Neal Pionk blasted home a point shot to make it 2-0 Jets early in the third. Cody Ceci nearly put the Oilers on the board when his shot went through Laurent Brossoit and was bouncing toward the net, but Pionk swatted it off the goal line.

David Gustafsson scored on a deflection halfway through the third. Morgan Barron and Kyle Capobianco added late goals for the Jets.

“We were competing well and then I thought we ran out of gas a little bit in that third period,” Oilers head coach Jay Woodcroft said. “We started to turn the puck over and they made us pay for some mistakes. We were in the box three times that period and it just took more and more juice out of us.”

The Oilers will host the Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday. You can listen to the game live on 630 CHED, beginning with The Faceoff Show at 5:30 p.m. The game starts at 7 p.m.

© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Another B.C. hospital has been forced to implement an unscheduled temporary emergency room closure due to a shortage of staff.

In a bulletin issued Monday afternoon, Interior Health said the ER at the Nicola Valley Hospital in Merritt would be closed overnight from 7 p.m. until 7 a.m. Tuesday “due to limited staffing availability.”

Patients were instead directed to Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops, nearly an hour’s drive away.

Interior Health said the ER closure did not affect other inpatient services at the hospital.

Anyone having a life-threatening emergency should still call 911, the health authority said.

© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.