Tag Archives: sports

After 100 Episodes of The Rebel Beat, We Select our Top 5

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Rebel Beat 100

We just hit a huge milestone for The Rebel Beat podcast on May 1st when we dropped the 100th episode of this show.  As you may know, I launched this show back in February 2015 as a live radio show on CKUT community radio in Montreal.

The Rebel Beat morphed out of a previous radio show I had been hosting for almost a decade prior, Roots Rock Rebel. Roots Rock Rebel was ska, punk, and reggae show. While it always had a political bent to it, I really wanted to change it up and build a show that centred radical politics in music. The powerful uprising and riots against police brutality in Ferguson in 2014 were really the catalyst for making this change, and hence The Rebel Beat was born.

Originally The Rebel Beat was a weekly show that aired every Wednesday from 10pm-12am on CKUT. As a weekly show, it was easy to churn out a ton of episodes, but it also involved an extreme amount of labour to research music on specific themes or topics, book interviews, research those interviews, haul crates of records down to the station every week…. you get the picture.

So in 2016 I made the hard decision to pull the show from the FM radio airwaves, and instead keep it up as a monthly podcast. Along the way, I joined forces with Firebrand Records, got to speak with some of my musical heroes, and kept producing a show that I really love and believe in.

So on this milestone of 100 episodes, I wanted to look back and select my 5 favourites. If you’re new to this podcast, these 5 are a great place to start. Continue reading →

Gritty: The Anti-Fascist Hockey Hero – Changing On The Fly

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Hey Rebel Beat listeners!

We interrupt our regular programming to bring you another episode of Changing On The Fly, Aaron’s other podcast, that we think you’re gonna love. Check it!

How did Gritty, the new mascot for the Philadelphia Flyers, become the new mascot for the American anti-fascist movement? Gritty is a huge, ugly, scary orange monster, who comes to us at a time when there is an equally huge, ugly, scary orange monster in the White House.

We’re joined on this episode by Mark Bray, history professor & the author of “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook” to talk about Gritty, hockey, and what the antifa movement actually is. Since we’re talking about Pennsylvania and fascism, we also reflect on the recent tragic synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, and pay our respects to the victims. May their memories be for a blessing.

**Like this podcast? Then support us!
www.patreon.com/changingonthefly

Changing On The Fly Episode 1: This Game We Love, On Stolen Land

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Hey Rebel Beat listeners! We interrupt our regular programming to bring you something special – the very first episode of Changing On The Fly, Aaron’s new podcast on hockey and radical politics!

If you want to follow along with all future episodes, subscribe to Changing On The Fly now wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, etc.)

If you enjoy Changing On The Fly, and want to support it, head over here to our Patreon page!

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On this episode, we lace up the skates and hit the ice to talk about colonialism in hockey, and the Indigenous hockey experience. What does it mean to call hockey “Canada’s game” while Canada is a country built on stolen Native land? We’re gonna take a deep dive into hockey’s role in Canada’s residential schools, the presence of Native mascots in sports, and the changing role of Indigenous hockey players in the NHL today.

To help us pick apart these huge questions, we hear from:

-Braden Te Hiwi. Te Hiwi is an Indigenous Maori academic, originally from New Zealand, who now teaches as an assistant professor in the Department of Kinesiology at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, ON. He co-authored an incredible paper on the history of hockey at the Pelican Lake Residential School in northern Ontario:
www.utpjournals.press/doi/abs/10.313…jh.ach.52.1.04

-Justin Louis is from the Samson Cree Nation of Mascwacis, Alberta, and the co-founder of Section 35, an Indigenous clothing company. Louis and Section 35 have put out a line of clothing called “Kill Mascots”, which takes aim at racist Native mascotry in sports (particularly the Chicago Blackhawks):
www.sectionthirtyfive.com/

-Jason Brennan is the producer and director of Hit the Ice, a show on the Aboriginal Peoples’ Television Nework (APTN) that follows the lives of young Indigenous hockey players. The show is now in its 6th season!
www.hittheice.tv/

To read the Calls to Action on sports from the Truth And Reconciliation Report, visit:
www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitu…Action_English2.pdf

For more information on Changing on the Fly, or to subscribe to the podcast:
ChangingOnTheFlyPodcast.Wordpress.com

Music in this episode is by The Kendallz, DJ Spooky, A Tribe Called Red, and Ilegot.

 

The Rebel Beat Se2 Ep9: Dave Zirin and the Music at the Edge of Sports

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Welcome back to another monthly episode of The Rebel Beat, a Firebrand Records podcast, and your spot for class war on the dance floor.

Our special guest this month is none other than Dave Zirin, author and host of the Edge of Sports podcast. Dave’s work delves into the fascinating collisions between sports and politics, and his work is incredibly inspiring for activists, sports fans, and activist sports fans! But importantly, Dave is also a huge lover of music, and that love really comes across in the podcast. He was in Montreal last month for an event, and we sat down for an interview over bagels, lox, and plenty of coffee.

If you like The Rebel Beat, please support us! Visit our Patreon page, and get your hands on some tasty perks!
www.patreon.com/rebelbeatradio

In Firebrand Records news, we bring you an exclusive premiere of the new Built for the Sea single, “The Falling kind”.

And finally, in our Turn It Up segment, we look at bands standing up to racism at the SXSW festival in Austin, TX.

Enjoy!

*Playlist*
The Hot 8 Brass Band – It’s real
Rude Mechanical Orchestra – Smash-a-bank polka
The Soul Rebels – Get lucky
Charles Mingus – Free Cell Block F, ‘tis Nazi USA
Built For The Sea – The falling kind
Cannonball Adderley – Walk tall
Downtown Boys – Wave of history

 

Click here to download this podcast

The Rebel Beat Podcast 050 – Boots Riley of The Coup

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Click here to download the podcast

 

Welcome back to another weekly podcast of The Rebel Beat! Our apologies it’s been over a week since the last podcast came out, but we’ve got a few more ready to be released ASAP!

This week, we bring you an amazing interview with the bombastically radical MC of The Coup, Boots Riley, done by the equally bombastic Dave Zirin of Edge of Sports. The interview was recorded at the Politics and Prose bookshop in Washington, DC, and boots_cover_full_rnd17-frontdistributed by the ever-amazing Making Contact radio program. A fascinating and exciting listen. Do be sure to check out Boots’ recently-published book “Tell Homeland Security – We are the Bomb“.

 

Plus, as always, tons of great music here, spanning afrobeat, hip-hop, and punk rock, all with that class war edge.

 

Enjoy! Continue reading →