rock and roll

This Day in Music History — August 10

1972 : Paul and Linda McCartney are arrested backstage in Gothenburg, Sweden, for possession of six ounces of marijuana, which was mailed to them by someone in McCartney’s office who thought they would like some weed on the road. The couple are released after paying a combined fine of $1,200.

1987 : A Chorus Line, the Broadway smash that had become the longest-running show on Broadway four years earlier, celebrates a historic 5,000th performance.

2012 : Insane Clown Posse takes exception to the FBI naming their fans, collectively known as ‘Juggalos,’ as a criminal gang in the FBI’s “2011 National Gang Threat Assessment Report.” At the annual Gathering of the Juggalos event in Illinois, they announce intentions to sue the FBI. Despite this, the FBI continues to list Juggalos as an organized gang in later years.

2012 : The bands Kiss and Motley Crue donate $100,000 together to the families of the victims of the Aurora, Colorado “Dark Knight” shooting. The massacre occurred Friday, July 20th, at a movie theater showing of The Dark Knight Rises when James Eagan Holmes burst into the theater with guns blazing, killing 12 and wounding 58. The story rocks the United States and the ensuing trial of shooter Holmes, who was inspired by the actions of ‘The Joker,’ a famed villain in the Batman franchise played by Heath Ledger, is to generate top headlines for many months yet.

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.

 

This Day in Music History — August 5

1957– American Bandstand first aired on US TV. Dick Clark had replaced Bob Horn the previous year when the show was still called Bandstand, Clark went on to host the show until 1989. Countless acts appeared on the show over the years, including Abba, The Doors, Talking Heads, Madonna, Otis Redding, R.E.M. and Pink Floyd.

1972– Aerosmith signed to CBS Records for $125,000 after record company boss Clive Davis saw them play at Max’s Kansas City Club New York.

1975 – The first all-female hard-rock band is formed when producer Kim Fowley puts together The Runaways, featuring Joan Jett, future Bangle Michael Steele, and Lita Ford.

1984– Bruce Springsteen played the first of ten nights at the Meadowlands in New Jersey to mark the homecoming of the Born in the USA Tour.

2007- DNA tests prove that at least two of the twelve claimants to the estate and fortune of recently deceased soul legend James Brown are found to be legitimate. His will had already named six known children.

Arcade Fire covers Guns N’ Roses and Jane’s Addiction on Tour

On Arcade Fire’s Reflecktor tour, they have been playing location specific covers.  They have had renditions of R.E.M. in Athens, Prince in Minneapolis, the Smiths in London, and Kansas in Missouri, and now the band played a few  songs by L.A. natives Jane’s Addiction and Guns N’ Roses.

Watch Arcade Fire cover Guns N’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle” and Jane’s Addiction’s “Been Caught Stealing.”

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.”