January 18, 1981 - WENDY O. WILLIAMS of the Plasmatics was arrested on stage at Milwaukee, today, and charged with the 'offence' of simulating sex with a sledgehammer, which was a tiny part of her many stage acts. Williams later filed a multimillion dollar civil suit against the Milwaukee Police, claiming they sexually assaulted and beat her during the arrest, but a jury rejected her claims. Wendy O, I love you, dear, and I love the barriers you broke in metal genres, stage performance, costume, and political intestinal fortitude. You were the whole dangerous package. Courtney? It's all been done before…and better. Wendy, R.I.P
1996 - LISA MARIE PRESLEY filed for divorce from Michael Jackson today, and rather than rabbit on we'll just give you the ids; the first being how the BBC reported the divorce, the second a funny bit of nonsense of Jackson singing to Lisa Marie during an interview. Kind of says it all, really. They were kids.
1939 - LOUIS ARMSTRONG and his orchestra recorded Jeepers Creepers today, the popular 1938 song that has since become a jazz and pop standard. The music was written by Harry Warren, the lyrics by Johnny Mercer. The song first appeared in the movie Going Places, which starred, amongst others, the future president of the USA, Ronald Reagan. The song was titled after a horse which featured in the film.The song was premiered by Louis Armstrong and has since been covered by dozens of other artists, including Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. It also featured in the 2001 horror flick, Jeepers Creepers. But this is almost the original - a version done by Armstrong and another jazz legend of the day, Jack Teargarden.
1969 - DRUMMER PETE BEST won his defamation suit against the Beatles today. It was reported that he was legally seeking $8 million, but according to Chinese-whispered rocklore, received less. Regardless, through circumstance, his life changed forever - here is a video of an interview he did six years ago.
1960 - JOHNNY PRESTON started a three week run at #1 on the US singles chart, today, with Running Bear, a song that was written by J.P. Richardson, aka The Big Bopper. The tune originally entered the chart in October 1959, quickly vanished, but re-entered in November and slowly climbed to the top. It became a hit in many countries. This video is from the 50th Anniversary of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper's final show at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa. Johnny Preston was a special guest on the night, and dedicates his performance to The Big Bopper, the man who 50 years earlier helped launch his career with a #1 record the world over. Preston, himself, left the planet last year, on March 4, at the age of 71. He died of heart failure in Beaumont, Texas. R.I.P JP
1973 - PINK FLOYD feature in our archives for many dates throughout the year, but 39 years ago today the band began recording one of the true giant rock'n'roll alums, Dark Side Of The Moon. It was their 8th album, and was originally entitled Dark Side Of The Moon - A Piece For Assorted Lunatics, a reference to the group's founding member, Syd Barrett, who was experiencing severe mental problems at this point. Dark Side of the Moon's themes include conflict, greed, the passage of time and mental illness, the latter partly inspired by Barrett's deteriorating mental state. The music, lyrics, production, art work, and everything else struck a chord with music lovers around the world, the album remained in the charts for 741 weeks from 1973 to 1988, longer than any other album in history. With an estimated 50 million copies sold, it is Pink Floyd's most commercially successful album and one of the best-selling albums in history. I can remember seeing the band perform live, at Melbourne's Festival Hall, and me being totally gobsmacked by the sound of the clocks, shooting around the top of the hall, jumping from speaker to speaker. The sound. Never before had loud music sounded so crystal clear, a sign of future sounds yet to come. forty years ago, had to be there maybe, not sure. Awesome.
1973 - A ROLLING STONES' benefit concert raised $200,000 for Nicaraguan earthquake relief, tonight, and it has since been widely reported that Mick Jagger donated a further $150,000. The 1972 Nicaragua earthquake occurred at 12:29 a.m. local time (06:29 UTC) on Saturday, December 23, 1972 near Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, and birthplace of Jagger's wife at the time, Bianca. It had a magnitude of 6.2 on the reichter scale, and occurred at a depth of about 5 kilometers beneath the center of the city. Within an hour after the main shock, there were two aftershocks, one of magnitude 5.0 and the other 5.2, occurred. The place was shook up. The earthquake caused widespread damage, among Managua's residents; 5,000 were killed, 20,000 injured, and an estimated 250,000 were left homeless. Following is American reports of the tragedy, and a live song from Rolling Stones at about the same time as the fund-raiser was held.
1974 - BAD COMPANY made themselves be known today, as the supergroup also meant the end of three brilliant bands, Free, Mott The Hoople and King Crimson. For information and videos on these three seminal bands, go to our archive and use the search engine. Bad Company consisted of two former Free band members (singer Paul Rodgers and drummer Simon Kirke), Mott the Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs and King Crimson bassist Boz Burrell. Many of their singles, such as Can't Get Enough, and Feel Like Makin' Love, have retained their popularity status within a couple generations, the band's songs remaining classic rock radio staples. So…from 40 years ago, this is Bad Company.
1975 - WHEN I worked in Adelaide and wrote for the city's evening newspaper, The News, and AC/DC were a little dinky band from Sydney, Status Quo were the denim clad kings of low rent rock'n'roll. For their first-ever hit, before they created their own rock'n'roll spin, go to our search engine and scan the archives. They put their own swing to the well-chunked Chuck Berry chords and scored 52 hits from 1968 to 1996. But this was the day they scored their only #1 hit.
1978 - NEILE SEDAKA is an American pop/rock singer, pianist, and composer, and was one of the hundreds of assembly-line song writers working at the famous Brill Building in New york City. His career has since spanned almost 56 years, during which time he has sold millions of records as an artist and has written or co-written over 500 songs for himself and other artists, collaborating mostly with lyricists Howard Greenfield and Phil Cody. This was the day, 34 years ago that Sedaka received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He had his first hit way back in 1957, with Diana, and this is his second big worldwide hit, Oh Carol...middle eight monologue and all…:)
1997 - TORI AMOS, highly-charged songstress and performer that she is, was #1 on singles charts around the world today, with Professional Widow (It's Got To Be). The original recording had been remixed by Armand Van Helden and was rumoured to be about Courtney Love, the former wife of Kurt Cobain. Here she is performing the song live.
1996 - LISA MARIE PRESLEY filed for divorce from Michael Jackson today, and rather than rabbit on we'll just give you the ids; the first being how the BBC reported the divorce, the second a funny bit of nonsense of Jackson singing to Lisa Marie during an interview. Kind of says it all, really. They were kids.
1939 - LOUIS ARMSTRONG and his orchestra recorded Jeepers Creepers today, the popular 1938 song that has since become a jazz and pop standard. The music was written by Harry Warren, the lyrics by Johnny Mercer. The song first appeared in the movie Going Places, which starred, amongst others, the future president of the USA, Ronald Reagan. The song was titled after a horse which featured in the film.The song was premiered by Louis Armstrong and has since been covered by dozens of other artists, including Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. It also featured in the 2001 horror flick, Jeepers Creepers. But this is almost the original - a version done by Armstrong and another jazz legend of the day, Jack Teargarden.
1969 - DRUMMER PETE BEST won his defamation suit against the Beatles today. It was reported that he was legally seeking $8 million, but according to Chinese-whispered rocklore, received less. Regardless, through circumstance, his life changed forever - here is a video of an interview he did six years ago.
1960 - JOHNNY PRESTON started a three week run at #1 on the US singles chart, today, with Running Bear, a song that was written by J.P. Richardson, aka The Big Bopper. The tune originally entered the chart in October 1959, quickly vanished, but re-entered in November and slowly climbed to the top. It became a hit in many countries. This video is from the 50th Anniversary of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper's final show at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa. Johnny Preston was a special guest on the night, and dedicates his performance to The Big Bopper, the man who 50 years earlier helped launch his career with a #1 record the world over. Preston, himself, left the planet last year, on March 4, at the age of 71. He died of heart failure in Beaumont, Texas. R.I.P JP
1973 - PINK FLOYD feature in our archives for many dates throughout the year, but 39 years ago today the band began recording one of the true giant rock'n'roll alums, Dark Side Of The Moon. It was their 8th album, and was originally entitled Dark Side Of The Moon - A Piece For Assorted Lunatics, a reference to the group's founding member, Syd Barrett, who was experiencing severe mental problems at this point. Dark Side of the Moon's themes include conflict, greed, the passage of time and mental illness, the latter partly inspired by Barrett's deteriorating mental state. The music, lyrics, production, art work, and everything else struck a chord with music lovers around the world, the album remained in the charts for 741 weeks from 1973 to 1988, longer than any other album in history. With an estimated 50 million copies sold, it is Pink Floyd's most commercially successful album and one of the best-selling albums in history. I can remember seeing the band perform live, at Melbourne's Festival Hall, and me being totally gobsmacked by the sound of the clocks, shooting around the top of the hall, jumping from speaker to speaker. The sound. Never before had loud music sounded so crystal clear, a sign of future sounds yet to come. forty years ago, had to be there maybe, not sure. Awesome.
1973 - A ROLLING STONES' benefit concert raised $200,000 for Nicaraguan earthquake relief, tonight, and it has since been widely reported that Mick Jagger donated a further $150,000. The 1972 Nicaragua earthquake occurred at 12:29 a.m. local time (06:29 UTC) on Saturday, December 23, 1972 near Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, and birthplace of Jagger's wife at the time, Bianca. It had a magnitude of 6.2 on the reichter scale, and occurred at a depth of about 5 kilometers beneath the center of the city. Within an hour after the main shock, there were two aftershocks, one of magnitude 5.0 and the other 5.2, occurred. The place was shook up. The earthquake caused widespread damage, among Managua's residents; 5,000 were killed, 20,000 injured, and an estimated 250,000 were left homeless. Following is American reports of the tragedy, and a live song from Rolling Stones at about the same time as the fund-raiser was held.
1974 - BAD COMPANY made themselves be known today, as the supergroup also meant the end of three brilliant bands, Free, Mott The Hoople and King Crimson. For information and videos on these three seminal bands, go to our archive and use the search engine. Bad Company consisted of two former Free band members (singer Paul Rodgers and drummer Simon Kirke), Mott the Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs and King Crimson bassist Boz Burrell. Many of their singles, such as Can't Get Enough, and Feel Like Makin' Love, have retained their popularity status within a couple generations, the band's songs remaining classic rock radio staples. So…from 40 years ago, this is Bad Company.
1975 - WHEN I worked in Adelaide and wrote for the city's evening newspaper, The News, and AC/DC were a little dinky band from Sydney, Status Quo were the denim clad kings of low rent rock'n'roll. For their first-ever hit, before they created their own rock'n'roll spin, go to our search engine and scan the archives. They put their own swing to the well-chunked Chuck Berry chords and scored 52 hits from 1968 to 1996. But this was the day they scored their only #1 hit.
1978 - NEILE SEDAKA is an American pop/rock singer, pianist, and composer, and was one of the hundreds of assembly-line song writers working at the famous Brill Building in New york City. His career has since spanned almost 56 years, during which time he has sold millions of records as an artist and has written or co-written over 500 songs for himself and other artists, collaborating mostly with lyricists Howard Greenfield and Phil Cody. This was the day, 34 years ago that Sedaka received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He had his first hit way back in 1957, with Diana, and this is his second big worldwide hit, Oh Carol...middle eight monologue and all…:)
1997 - TORI AMOS, highly-charged songstress and performer that she is, was #1 on singles charts around the world today, with Professional Widow (It's Got To Be). The original recording had been remixed by Armand Van Helden and was rumoured to be about Courtney Love, the former wife of Kurt Cobain. Here she is performing the song live.
