On This day In Music.

April 19th 1969;
A band named Smile performed at a club called The Revolution in London. They would later change their name to Queen.

 

Ah, Frank Black, or Black Francis as he's been known to answer to. He's as mad as the proverbial hatter so he is. I bought his self titled solo album a few years back. Los Angeles has to be one of the strangest songs I've ever heard..

 

April 23rd 1976;
The Ramones released their eponymous debut album. The front cover depicts the band members standing in a line leaning against a brick wall, taken by Roberta Bayley. The cover was ranked No.58 on Rolling Stone's list of 100 Greatest Album Covers. It was to later launch about six million T-shirt sales.

Same day 1989;
Kylie Minogue was seen on British TV for the first time in the Australian soap opera 'The Henderson Kids.'

 

April 25th 1982; Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'Ebony And Ivory.' This was McCartney's 24th No.1 hit single as a songwriter. The title was inspired by McCartney hearing Spike Milligan say "black notes, white notes, and you need to play the two to make harmony folks!". It was later named as the tenth worst song of all time by Blender magazine and in 2007 was named the worst duet in history by BBC 6 Music listeners.

Now that was one shit record.

And on a personal note, it's six years ago today that I went to New York to watch Elbow at the Bowery, Greenwich Village. What I didn't know beforehand was that the band were performing an impromptu acoustic gig at a Virgin Megastore in Union St the day before. Luckily we were passing the store a couple of hours before the gig so got there early. Superb stuff..

 

I am acutely aware that I'm talking to myself in here...

 

April 30th 1976, The Who's drummer Keith Moon paid nine cab drivers to block-off both ends of a New York street so he could throw the contents of his hotel room out of the window.

Rock n Roll..

 

May 1st, 2013; A Minnesota man was accused of pretending to be a member of Pink Floyd at a US hospital racked up as much as $100,000 in unpaid medical bills. Phillip Michael Schaeffer, 53, went for treatment April 20 and claimed he was Pink Floyd singer-guitarist David Gilmour and that he didn't have health insurance. The man was treated and released from the St. Cloud Hospital, Minnesota, but not before he signed an autograph for an employee’s son.

"Erm, I haven't got medical insurance but I am in Pink Floyd, would that be OK?" Who the feck in a hospital would say that was alright?

 

November 9th 1961; Brian Epstein saw The Beatles playing live for the first time during a lunchtime session at The Cavern Liverpool. Epstein went on to be the group's manager.

 

1980, John Lennon was shot five times by 25 year old Mark Chapman outside the Dakota building in New York City where John and Yoko lived. Chapman had been stalking Lennon for days outside the Dakota apartments and asked for an autograph as Lennon walked through the courtyard. As he signed a piece of paper Chapman fired. Lennon was pronounced dead from a massive loss of blood at 11.30pm.

 

Exactly 50 years ago today Bob Dylan walked into Studio A at Columbia Records and recorded "Like a Rolling Stone,"

that is some tune..

 

His three albums all bombed while he was alive, he's more popular now than he ever was while he was breathing. His biography is one of the saddest things I've ever read.