10 Friday, March 12, 2021 brooklintowncrier.com No Sleep Til Sudbury by Tom Jokic Nearly every day, Brent Jensen strolls along the Cedarbrook Trail, one of Brooklin's many beautiful walking areas. It's where he ponders life and music, both of which are practically interchangeable to him. Once at home, he heads to his basement office and gets to work on his popular weekly podcast, "No Sleep 'Til Sudbury," which has been on the air since 2017. Named for Jensen's very readable 2014 musical memoir, the podcast is what happens when a self-proclaimed music geek talks to the artists he reveres. In his relaxed manner, he asks each guest about "the music that makes your skin vibrate." Then, for the next 25 minutes, the conversation veers from the outrageous to the deeply personal. His guests range from famous musicians including members of The Black Crowes, Triumph and Honeymoon Suite to lesserknown names who talk about their experiences in the unpredictable world of rock and roll. Jensen's hard rock apprenticeship began with one particular concert. On December 8, 1984, Iron Maiden and Twisted Sister made a surprising tour stop at the small 5,000 seat Sudbury arena, 45 minutes from his hometown of Espanola. Mind blowing The show blew his young mind forever. "They were literally at the height of their fame," he recalls. "No big names ever came to Sudbury…. not Motley Crue, not Van Halen, nobody." However his first foray into fandom was not a hard rock band at all. "When I was in the second grade," he says with a laugh, "I was a massive Bay City Rollers fan. I had my mom sew plaid material on my jeans." His tastes took a different path when he saw the cover of the 1977 album "Kiss Alive 2," which he now admits would have scared him in his Bay City Rollers days. Jensen's musical education continued as he discovered bands like Guns N Roses and then started listening to their predecessors like Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. "I learned music backwards," he says. Conspiracies Among the best of his 198 episodes are ones that deal with rock and roll conspiracy theories. These include the classic "Paul McCartney is dead" rumours from the late '60s, a number of truly head-shaking moments, and the deeply held theories behind the death of grunge icon Kurt Cobain. Jensen tiptoes along the fine line between bemusement and seriousness as he reports on the details of these bizarre tales. During his artist interviews, listeners realize that hearing people talk passionately about music is an education in itself. When the show ends, they often have their own to-do list of "new" songs to listen to. With "No Sleep 'Til Sudbury" among thousands of podcasts available on a daily basis, Jensen believes you don't get into podcasting for fame or fortune. "The reason why I continue to do it is because it's a passion project. It's fulfilling in that way. My advice to people who start a podcast would be don't do it for the wrong reasons. Don't do it because you want to make money; don't do it because you want to have notoriety. Do it because you love it and because you get something out of it." "No Sleep 'Til Sudbury" is available on Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to podcasts. Brooklin resident Tom Jokic is the creator of the podcast "Famous Lost Words" which he cohosts with former MuchMusic VJ and award-winning songwriter Christopher Ward. See the adjoining article by Richard Bercuson on page 11. Brooklin Becomes Podcast Central Podcasts seem to be omnipresent. According to podcastinsights.com, there are over 1.75 million of them currently online, featuring more than 43 million episodes. Brooklin is home to three podcast shows. In this issue, we highlight two which happen to be hosted by locals: "Famous Lost Words" with Tom Jokic and Brent Jensen's "No Sleep Til Sudbury." (The third is hosted by BTC editor Richard Bercuson, "Grassroots the minor hockey show" -grassrootsminorhockey.com. He doesn't want to interview himself about it for fear of what he might say.) All three are available on Apple, Spotify and various other podcast hosting sites. Please visit the BTC website, brooklintowncrier.com, where we provide links to them along with short clips.