Culture Club

Bob Dylan, Rock History – February 4

February 4, 2020 by Mitch Michaels

1966, Bob Dylan and The Band played at the Convention Center in Louisville, Kentucky. This was the first date on a world tour which would become significant as the first outing in which Dylan used electric instruments, after he had gone “electric” at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

1966, The Who play the Astoria Theatre in Finsbury Park, North London. The supporting acts are Screamin’ Lord Sutch & the Savages, the Merseys, the Fortunes and the Graham Bond Organization.

1967, The Rolling Stones’ Between the Buttons enters the UK chart at number three.

1967, this was the last week of a thirteen weeks atop the US album charts for The Monkees self-titled debut album. It would be knocked off on February 11 by the followup, More of the Monkees.

1968, Billed as ‘Tour 60 cities in 66 Days’ The Jimi Hendrix Experience appeared at the Winterland in San Francisco.

1968, Working at Abbey Road studios, London, The Beatles recorded “Across The Universe.” John and Paul decided the song needed some falsetto harmonies so they invited two girl fans into the studio to sing on the song. The two were Lizzie Bravo, a 16-year-old Brazilian living near Abbey Road, and 17-year-old Londoner Gayleen Pease.

1970, John Lennon and Yoko Ono donated their hair for an auction in aid of the Black Power movement.

1972, Genesis appeared at the Hippodrome in Bristol, England.

1973, Pink Floyd played at the Palais des Sports de la Porte de Versailles, Paris.

1972, In a memo to Attorney General John Mitchell, South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond suggests that John Lennon be deported.

1974, Pink Floyd release “Time” backed with “Us and Them” as a 7-inch single in the US.

1975, Led Zeppelin performs at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York.

1975, American jazz, blues, songwriter and saxophonist Louis Jordon died aged 66. Known as “The King of the Jukebox,” between 1942-1950 he scored eighteen number one singles and fifty-four Top Ten hits on the US R&B chart.

1976, David Bowie appeared at Memorial Coliseum, Portland, Oregon.

1977, This was the 25th anniversary show of TV’s American Bandstand, which began as a local program on WFIL-TV, Channel 6 in Philadelphia on October 7, 1952.

1977, Aerosmith played at the Kyoden-Taiiku-Kan, Fukuoka, Japan.

1977, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours is released. The album shoots to the top of US album charts, staying there for 31 weeks. More than 17 million copies have been sold in the U.S.

1978, The Bee Gees started a four week run at number one on the singles chart with “Staying Alive.” It came from the film soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever, it gave the Gibb brothers their fifth number one.

1979, The Grateful Dead appeared at the Dane County Coliseum in Madison, Wisconsin.

1981, The Who performed at the Rainbow Theatre in London.

1982, Scottish singer Alex Harvey died of a heart attack while waiting to take a ferry back to shore after performing a concert with his new band, the Electric Cowboys. In an ambulance on the way to the hospital, he suffered a second heart attack, this one fatal. It occurred on the day before his 47th birthday, in Zeebrugen, Belgium. Formed Alex Harvey Big Soul Band in 1959 and then mid 1960’s band Tear Gas. He had the 1975 UK number seven single with Sensational Alex Harvey Band “Delilah” and 1975 album Next.

1983, Karen Carpenter died aged 32 of a cardiac arrest at her parent’s house in Downey, California. The coroner’s report gave the cause of death of imbalances associated with anorexia nervosa. The Carpenters’ 1970 album Close to You, featured two hit singles, (“They Long to Be) Close to You” and “We’ve Only Just Begun.” They peaked at number one and two respectively on the singles chart. In Playboy‘s annual opinion poll for 1975, its readers voted Karen Carpenter the Best Rock Drummer of the year.

1984, Culture Club started a three-week run at number one on the US singles chart with “Karma Chameleon” the group’s 5th US Top 10 hit, also a chart topper in the UK.

1984, The Eurythmics scored their first UK number one album with their second release Touch, featuring the singles “Here Comes The Rain Again,” “Who’s That Girl,” and “Right By Your Side.”

1984, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble kicked off their 114-date Couldn’t Stand the Weather tour at the War Memorial Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee.

1985, Prince performed at the Mid-South Coliseum, Memphis, Tennessee.

1992, Pearl Jam appeared at The Borderline in London, England, tickets cost £5 ($8.50.)

1999, Rykodisc becomes the first music label to give its stamp of approval to the MP3 music format.

2001, Jimmy Buffett is thrown out of a New York Knicks – Miami Heat basketball game after verbally abusing a referee.

2009, Erick Lee Purkhiser, aka Lux Interior, singer and founding member of The Cramps died aged 62. He met his wife, better known as Poison Ivy, born Ivy Rorschach, in Sacramento in 1972, when he and a friend picked her up when she was hitchhiking. The couple later founded The Cramps.

Born on February 4: John Steel, The Animals (1942); Florence Larue, The 5th Dimension (1944); Margie and Mary Ann Ganser, vocalists, The Shangri-Las (1947); Vincent Furnier, aka Alice Cooper (1948); Phil Ehart, Kansas (1950); Jerry Shirley, Humble Pie (1951); Clint Black, country singer (1962)

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Today in Rock History – October 23

October 23, 2019 by Mitch Michaels

1966, The Jimi Hendrix Experience recorded their first single “Hey Joe,” at De Lane Lea studios in London. The earliest known commercial recording of the song is the late-1965 single by the Los Angeles garage band the The Leaves. The band then re-recorded the track and released it in 1966 as a follow-up single which became a hit. The Byrds also performed and recorded a version of the song.

1966, The Yardbirds, with new recruit Jimmy Page, perform at San Francisco’s Fillmore.

1967, Pink Floyd plays at the Bath Pavilion in Bath, Somerset, England.

1969, Columbia Records announces it will take legal action to stop sales of Great White Wonder, the popular bootleg set of previously unreleased Bob Dylan material.

1969, The Who continue a six-night stand at the Fillmore East in New York accompanied by the Joshua Light Show.

1970, Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention perform at Kleinhans Music Hall in Buffalo, New York.

1970, The Who appear at Green’s Playhouse in Glasgow, Scotland.

1971, Yes played at the Empire Theatre, Edinburgh, Scotland.

1972, The Grateful Dead appeared at the Performing Arts Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

1972, Filming begins on That’ll Be the Day, a musical starring David Essex, Ringo Starr, and Keith Moon.

1973, Genesis appeared at City Hall, Newcastle, England.

1973, “Midnight Train to Georgia” by Gladys Knight & The Pips reaches number one on the US singles chart.

1974, David Bowie appeared at the Arie Crown Theater, Chicago

1975, Eric Clapton performed at Festival Hall, Osaka, Japan.

1976, The Clash appeared at The ICA in London.

1976, The Jam played an afternoon show at Soho Market in London.

1976, Chicago started a two week run at number one on the singles chart with “If You Leave Me Now.” It was the group’s 18th Top 40 and first number one. It went on to win a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance.

1976, Led Zeppelin made their US television debut on Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert, when footage from The Song Remains the Same movie of “Dazed and Confused” and “Black Dog” is aired on the popular weekly music show.

1977, AC/DC played at Town Hall, Middlesborough, England.

1978, Sid Vicious tries to commit suicide at Rikers Island in New York. Vicious was waiting to be charged with murder following the stabbing death of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen.

1980, The Allman Brothers Band appeared at the Sunrise Theater, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

1980, Mark David Chapman quit his security job and signed out for the last time. Instead of the usual “Chappy” he wrote “John Lennon.” Chapman would murder Lennon on December 8th outside his New York City home.

1982, Culture Club were at number one on the UK singles chart with “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me,” the group’s first chart topper and the first of twelve UK Top 40 hits. The song became a major hit after their memorable debut performance on Top of the Pops, when they stood in for Shakin’ Stevens who was ill and not able to appear.

1984, Pete Townshend stages and performs at an anti-heroin benefit concert at The Moonlight in Hampstead. Making their live debut at this show is a new band called The Stone Roses. Their drummer, Alan “Reni” Wren, also sits in for Pete’s set.

1989, Nirvana played their first ever European show when they appeared at Newcastle’s Riverside Club in North East England. It was the first night of a 36 date European tour for the group who were sharing the bill with Tad.

1993, Meat Loaf had his first UK chart topper with “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That.”) It stayed at number one for seven weeks. A number one in twenty-eight countries and gave Meat Loaf his first US top hit.

1995, Def Leppard gave themselves a place in the Guinness book Of World Records, by playing three gigs in three continents in 24 hours. Tangier, London and Vancouver.

2002, A federal judge in St. Louis dismissed a lawsuit against Chuck Berry by Johnnie Johnson, a piano player and former collaborator who wanted royalties for more than 30 songs written between 1955 and 1966. The songs in question included “No Particular Place To Go,” “Roll Over Beethoven,” and “Sweet Little Sixteen.” Johnson’s lawsuit argued that he and Berry were co-writers on many of the songs, but because Berry copyrighted them in his name alone, Johnson got none of the royalties. The judge ruled that too many years had passed to bring about a royalties suit.

2005, Arctic Monkeys scored their first UK number one single with “I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor,” the Sheffield band’s debut single.

Born on October 23: Ellie Greenwich, songwriter (1940); Freddie Marsden, Gerry And The Pacemakers (1940); Greg Ridley, bass player, Spooky Tooth, Humble Pie (1943); Michael Burston, Motorhead (1949); Dwight Yoakam, (1956); Robert Trujillo, bass, songwriter Metallica, Black Label Society, Suicidal Tendencies (1964); Dale Crover, singer-songwriter, drummer, producer Melvins (1967);

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Today in Rock History – October 22

October 22, 2019 by Mitch Michaels

1964, EMI sends Kit Lambert a letter of rejection for The High Numbers. That was the original band name for The Who. The rejection letter is later included with the Live At Leeds album. Since the reason the group is rejected is their lack of original material, Kit and Chris Stamp set up Pete with a Vortexion reel-to-reel recorder and tell him to get writing. From this time on almost all Pete Townshend songs will be written and presented as completed demos, a style of presentation then unknown in England. His first pieces with the new system are a dance song called “You Don’t Have To Jerk” and a male chauvinist/hot-rod song (meant to appeal to both Roger and Keith) named “Call Me Lightning.”

1966, The Supremes had their first number one album with The Supremes a Go Go, knocking The Beatles Revolver, from the top of the charts.

1966, The Beach Boys “Good Vibrations” made its debut on the singles chart. Written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love, the track was recorded over 6 weeks in four different Los Angeles studios, at a cost of over $16,000 (£10,000.) The recording engineer would later say that the last take sounded exactly like the first, six months earlier. The record would reach number one on the charts in December 1966.

1967, The Who play two shows at the Saville Theatre in London, preceded by Vanilla Fudge and Studio Six. Before the show, Pete is interviewed on camera about illicit drugs by Australian director Peter Clifton. During the show, Pete plays a two-necked guitar and Keith wears a jester’s outfit.

1969, American singer Tommy Edwards died after suffering a brain aneurysm in Henrico County, Virginia, at the age of 47. He had the 1958 US and UK top single “It’s All In The Game.”

1969, Paul McCartney publicly denied rumors that he was dead. The most recent of many “clues” of this death hoax was the fact that he was the only barefoot Beatle on the newly released Abby Road LP cover. The story was actually started as a prank by Fred La Bour, a sports and arts writer for the student paper, The Michigan Daily at the University of Michigan.

1969, Led Zeppelin II was released on Atlantic Records in the UK. The Jimmy Page-produced album which was recorded over six months between four European and three American tours, peaked at number one in both the UK and the US, going on to sell over 12 million copies in the US alone, and spending 138 weeks on the UK chart. The album is now recognized by writers and music critics as one of the greatest and most influential rock albums ever recorded.

1970, The Who appear at the ABC Cinema in Stockton-on-Tees, England.

1970, Pink Floyd played at the Fillmore West, San Francisco, along with the Roger Wagner Chorale, three French horns, three trombones, three trumpets, and a tuba. They were there for the second ever stage performance of the “Atom Heart Mother Suite.”

1971, The Who perform at the Opera House in Blackpool, Lancashire, England.

1973, Roxy Music appear at City Hall, Sheffield, England.

1974, David Bowie plays at the Arie Crown Theater, Chicago.

1975, The Allman Brothers Band perform at the Civic Center, Bakersfield, California.

1976, Frank Zappa appears at the Memorial Auditorium, Buffalo, New York.

1978, Bob Dylan plays at the University Of Dayton Arena, Dayton, Ohio.

1979, The Pretenders started a run of four consecutive Monday nights at the Marquee Club in London.

1980, The Grateful Dead kicked off an eight night performance at Radio City Music Hall in New York.

1982, Mayor Sara Robertson in Worcester, MA, declared today Van Halen Day, in response to local fans collecting 25,000 signatures requesting the band add a second show to their tour.

1983, Culture Club went to number one on the album chart with their second release Colour By Numbers.

1988, Phil Collins started a two week run at number one on the singles chart with “Groovy Kind Of Love,” his 6th chart topper.

1988, U2 scored their fourth number one album with the double set and film soundtrack Rattle And Hum, featuring their first number one single “Desire.”

1989, English folk singer, songwriter, poet, and record producer Ewan MacColl died aged 74. He wrote “Dirty Old Town” and “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” which became a number one hit for Roberta Flack in 1972. Acts including Planxty, The Dubliners, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash recorded his songs. He was the father of singer, songwriter Kirsty MacColl.

1990, Pearl Jam played their first ever concert when they appeared at the Off Ramp in Seattle.

1993, Oasis signed a six-album deal with Creation Records for a £40,000 ($64,000) advance.

2000, George Michael paid £1.45 ($2.32) million for the Steinway piano on which John Lennon wrote “Imagine.” George said, “I know that when my fingers touch the keys of that Steinway, I will feel truly blessed. And parting with my money has never been much of a problem, just ask my accountant.” The singer outbid Robbie Williams and The Oasis brothers.

2000, Pearl Jam appeared at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, California, celebrating the tenth anniversary of their first live performance as a band.

2008, A homeless man claimed a £2,000 ($3200) reward by returning a waxwork head of ex-Beatle Sir Paul McCartney which had been left on a train. Anthony Silva found the item in a bin at Reading station after auctioneer Joby Carter left it under a seat at Maidenhead station. The homeless man thought it was a Halloween mask and had been using it as a pillow before realizing what it was. The wax model sold the following week for £5,500 ($8800) at auction.

Born on this day: Timothy Leary (1920); Bobby Fuller, The Bobby Fuller Four (1942); Leslie West, Mountain (1945); and Eddie Brigati, vocals, The Young Rascals (1946); Greg Hawkes, keyboards, The Cars (1952); Stiv Bators, vocals, Dead Boys, Wanderers, Lords Of The New Church (1956); Cris Kirkwood, singer-songwriter, bass, Meat Puppets (1960); Jon Foreman, singer-songwriter, guitarist Switchfoot, Fiction Family (1976)

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Today in Rock History – February 4th

February 4, 2014 by Mitch Michaels

1966, Bob Dylan and The Band played at the Convention Center in Louisville, Kentucky. This was the first date on a world tour which would become noted as Dylan’s first that used electric instruments, after he had ‘gone electric’ at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.

1967, The Rolling Stones’ Between the Buttons enters the U.K. chart at No. 3.

1967, The Monkees self-titled debut album started a seven-week run at No.1 on the album chart.

1968, Billed as ‘Tour 60 cities in 66 Days’ The Jimi Hendrix Experience appeared at the Winterland in San Francisco.

1968, Working at Abbey Road studios, London, The Beatles recorded ‘Across The Universe’. John and Paul decided the song needed some falsetto harmonies so they invited two girl fans into the studio to sing on the song. The two were Lizzie Bravo, a 16-year-old Brazilian living near Abbey Road and 17-year-old Londoner Gayleen Pease.

1970, John Lennon and Yoko Ono donated their hair for an auction in aid of the Black Power movement.

1972, Genesis appeared at the Hippodrome in Bristol, England.

1973, Pink Floyd played at the Palais des Sports de la Porte de Versailles, Paris.

1972, In a memo to Attorney General John Mitchell, South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond suggests that John Lennon be deported.

1974, Pink Floyd release “Time” b/w “Us and Them” as a 7-inch single in the US.

1975, Led Zeppelin performs at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York.

1975, American jazz, blues, songwriter and saxophonist Louis Jordon died aged 66. Known as “The King of the Jukebox,” between 1942-1950 he scored eighteen No.1 singles and fifty-four Top Ten hits on the US R&B chart.

1976, David Bowie appeared at Memorial Coliseum, Portland, Oregon.

1977, The 25th anniversary show of TV’s “American Bandstand,” which began as a local program on WFIL-TV, Channel 6 in Philadelphia on October 7, 1952.

1977, Aerosmith played at the Kyoden-Taiiku-Kan, Fukuoka, Japan.

1977, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours is released. The album shoots to the top of US album charts, staying there for 31 weeks. More than 17 million copies have been sold in the U.S.

1978, The Bee Gees started a four week run at No.1 on the singles chart with ‘Staying Alive’. From the film soundtrack Saturday Night Fever, it gave the brothers their fifth No.1.

1979, The Grateful Dead appeared at the Dane County Coliseum in Madison, Wisconsin.

1981, The Who performed at the Rainbow Theatre in London.

1982, Scottish singer Alex Harvey died of a heart attack while waiting to take a ferry back to shore after performing a concert with his new band, the Electric Cowboys. In an ambulance on the way to the hospital, he suffered a second heart attack, this one fatal. It occurred on the day before his 47th birthday, in Zeebrugen, Belgium. Formed Alex Harvey Big Soul Band in 1959 and then mid 1960’s band Tear Gas. Had the 1975 UK No.7 single with Sensational Alex Harvey Band ‘Delilah’ and 1975 album ‘Next’.

1983, Karen Carpenter died aged 32 of a cardiac arrest at her parent’s house in Downey, California; the coroner’s report gave the cause of death of imbalances associated with anorexia nervosa. The Carpenters 1970 album Close to You, featured two hit singles: ‘(They Long to Be) Close to You’ and ‘We’ve Only Just Begun.’ They peaked at No.1 and No.2, on the singles chart. In 1975 – In Playboy’s annual opinion poll; its readers voted Karen Carpenter the Best Rock Drummer of the year.

1984, Culture Club started a three-week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with “Karma Chameleon” the group’s 5th US Top 10 hit, also a No.1 in the UK.

1984, Eurythmics scored their first UK No.1 album with their second release Touch, featuring the singles “Here Comes The Rain Again,” “Who’s That Girl” and “Right By Your Side.”

1984, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble kicked off their 114-date Couldn’t Stand the Weather tour at the War Memorial Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee.

1985, Prince performed at the Mid-South Coliseum, Memphis, Tennessee.

1992, Pearl Jam appeared at The Borderline in London, England, tickets cost £5 ($8.50.)

1999, In a daring move, Rykodisc becomes the first music label to give its stamp of approval to the MP3 music format.

2001, Jimmy Buffett is thrown out of a New York Knicks – Miami Heat basketball game after verbally abusing a referee.

Born on this day: John Steel, The Animals (1942); Florence Larue, The 5th Dimension (1944); Margie and Mary Ann Ganser, vocalists, The Shangri-Las (1947); Vincent Furnier, aka Alice Cooper (1948); Phil Ehart, Kansas (1950); Jerry Shirley, Humble Pie (1951); and Clint Black, country singer (1962)

Today in Rock History home page