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This Day in Music History — August 9

1964 : Bob Dylan and Joan Baez share the stage for the first time, singing “With God On Our Side” at the Newport Folk Festival.

1986 : Queen play their last live concert with Freddie Mercury at the Knebworth Park Festival in England. An audience of 120,000 hears them close out with “We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions” and “God Save The Queen.”

1995 : The original members of Kiss play together for the first time since 1980 when Peter Criss and Ace Frehley join the current band to record their MTV Unplugged special, which is later released as the album Kiss Unplugged. Not counting Ace Frehley’s 1976 wedding, it also marks the only time the original members performed makeup. The appearance goes over so well that Criss and Frehley rejoin the band in 1996, replacing Bruce Kulick and Eric Singer. The subsequent tour becomes the top grossing tour that year.

2002 : Lisa Marie Presley is married to actor Nicolas Cage, in a union that lasts less than four months.

This Day in Music History — August 8

1970 : Christine McVie plays her first gig with Fleetwood Mac at a show in New Orleans. The band’s first female member, she played on some of their albums before she was asked to join full-time.

1970 : At Philadelphia’s Mount Lawn Cemetery, Janis Joplin purchases a headstone for her idol, Bessie Smith, the famous African-American Blues singer who died from injuries suffered in a 1937 car crash – after being refused at a whites-only hospital. (Bessie’s widower refused to purchase a stone for her.)

1986 : David Crosby (The Byrds, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young) is released from prison after serving only eight months of his original five-year sentence for cocaine and firearms possession.


2000 : The first gathering of the Juggalos takes place in Novi, Michigan at the Expo Center. This becomes an annual event for cult fans of the Horror-Rap group Insane Clown Posse. While the first event only lasted two days and was basically an extended concert, the event has transformed over the years into a full-on festival with concerts by many bands and artists, contests, games, wrestling, and other attractions – sort of a Lollapalooza for the Underground/Indie Rap/Hip-Hop genre. The annual tradition has now settled on Cave-In-Rock, Illinois, as their permanent location, and attracts as many as 20,000 attendees every year.

2011 : While on tour with Maroon 5 and Train, Gavin DeGraw is attacked by a group of men on a New York City street. He suffers a broken nose and is taken to Bellevue Hospital for treatment.

 

Music Map Pinpoints The City’s Greatest Song References

Here is your one stop shop for songs about New York City. Constantine Valhouli, a real estate developer, made a map with more than 200 dropped pins referencing songs about New York.

“Those songs are collectively a love letter to NYC,” Valhouli said in an interview with CMJ earlier this month. “It’s fun to see how your block or neighborhood has been mythologized by, say, Leonard Cohen or Etta James or the Ramones.” He also made a Boston-based map and told Vanyaland he’s in the process of compiling one too for Los Angeles. Fans can send in song additions by emailing Valhouli at musicmapnyc [AT] gmail.com.


This Day in Music History — July 25

1965 : Dylan plugs in! At the Newport Folk Festival, Bob Dylan plays an electric set for the first time, horrifying folkies everywhere.

1969 : Neil Young appeared with Crosby, Stills and Nash for the first time when played at The Fillmore East in New York. Young was initially asked to help out with live material only, but ended up joining the group on and off for the next 30 years.

1989 : Steve Rubell, one of the owners of Studio 54, dies of AIDS-related causes at age 45.

1995 : Bone Thugs-N-Harmony release their breakthrough album E. 1999 Eternal, which has gone platinum six times and features one of their biggest hits of all time “Tha Crossroads,” which went platinum twice and won a 1996 Grammy for Best Rap Performance By a Duo or Group.

1999 : On the third day of the Woodstock ’99 festival on Griffiss Air Force Base, overpriced water, overflowing toilets and a Limp Bizkit performance of “Break Stuff” leads to riots, groping and injuries. Conditions deteriorated as the festival raged on, and by the final day, MTV was covering the event with the tagline “Apocalypse Woodstock.”

‘Try’ to Take a Stand against Photoshop

In her music video for “Try,” Colbie Caillat takes a stance against Photoshop. During the video, she un-Photoshops herself, ending  as her natural, unedited self, alongside an eclectic set of women, who undergo the same process.

“When I shot the first scene with no hair and makeup on in front of an HD camera in my face, flashed with bright lights, everyone was watching,” she told Elle. “I thought, ‘Oh my god, I bet they’re all looking at my blemishes, thinking that I should cover them up, or that I should put some volume in my hair.’ But it also felt really cool to be on camera with zero on, like literally nothing on. And then when it got to the full hair and makeup, I actually felt gross. I was just so caked on.”

Enjoy!