Are you ready to learn some stuff? It’s May 7th and here’s what happened Today in Rock History!
Starting off big, as it was on this day in 2016 that Axl Rose, after finishing a tour with Guns N Roses, takes over as the lead singer of AC/DC at a show in Lisbon due to singer Brian Johnson being told by doctors that if he continued touring, he would get permanent hearing loss. Rose filled in for Johnson for the remaining dates of AC/DC’s current tour.
Moving onto releases now, we have The Great Southern Trendkill from Pantera, Trouble at the Henhouse by The Tragically Hip and The Golden Age of Grotesque by Marilyn Manson.
We got a laundry list of birthdays to get through so lets start off with Phil “Wizzö” Campbell of Motorhead!
We also have Jerry Nolan of the New York Dolls, Bill Kruetzmann of Grateful Dead and Steve Diggle of the Buzzcocks
We aren’t done yet as we also have Paul Leary of the Butthole Surfers, Bernie Marsden of Whitesnake, and Matt Helders of the Arctic Monkeys!
We lost Nigel Preston of The Cult of a drug overdose in 1992. He was 32.
In 1992, John Frusciante quits the Red Hot Chili Peppers during the Japan leg of their Blood Sugar Sex Magik tour. After a stint in rehab in 1998 and getting clean due to his drug addiction, Frusciante rejoined the band in 2009.
The Eagles classic Hotel California tops the Hot 100 in 1977.
And speaking of the Eagles, in 1978 the band played a game of softball against members of Rolling Stone magazine after RS claimed that the band are “more interested in finding a softball team they can beat.” The band beat the magazine’s team 15-8.
In 1994, Jello Biafra, lead singer of punk group Dead Kennedys is injured during a Fixtures show in a club in Berkeley, CA. As an audience member in the pit, a mosher lands on Biafra’s leg and begins to start a fight with the rocker. According to Jello, the mosher and his friends kicked him in the head and called Biafra a “sellout rock star.”
And finally in 2005, System of a Down performs on Saturday Night Live. During their performance of protest rager B.Y.O.B., the network had their finger on the button and used a five second delay anytime the band dropped the F-Bomb. They were banned soon after one unprompted F-bomb got through the censor and the video of the performance seems to have disappeared from official SNL outlets, becoming a bit of lost media.
This has been Today in Rock History! Keep on Rocking, keep on Rolling! Check back tomorrow for your next rock history lesson!
