Are you ready to learn some stuff? It’s March 3rd and here’s what happened Today in Rock History!
Beginning the day with releases, we have an amazing list for you today, starting with Metallica’s Master of Puppets from 1986!
What? Expecting the title track? Gotta keep ya on your toes dear reader.
Other releases include Frank Zappa’s Sheik Yerbouti from 1979, Easter from the Patti Smith Group in 1978, and Plastic Beach from the Gorillaz in 2010!
We also got the world’s longest album title released on this day in 2008 from Chumbawamba with The Boy Bands Have Won… Doesn’t seem like much right? Well, the full 160-word title is The Boy Bands Have Won, and All the Copyists and the Tribute Bands and the TV Talent Show Producers Have Won, If We Allow Our Culture to Be Shaped by Mimicry, Whether from Lack of Ideas or from Exaggerated Respect. You Should Never Try to Freeze Culture. What You Can Do Is Recycle That Culture. Take Your Older Brother’s Hand-Me-Down Jacket and Re-Style It, Re-Fashion It to the Point Where It Becomes Your Own. But Don’t Just Regurgitate Creative History, or Hold Art and Music and Literature as Fixed, Untouchable and Kept Under Glass. The People Who Try to ‘Guard’ Any Particular Form of Music Are, Like the Copyists and Manufactured Bands, Doing It the Worst Disservice, Because the Only Thing That You Can Do to Music That Will Damage It Is Not Change It, Not Make It Your Own. Because Then It Dies, Then It’s Over, Then It’s Done, and the Boy Bands Have Won. Try saying that five times fast.
With birthdays, we have Ghost’s Papa Emeritus and Cardinal Copia himself, Tobias Forge.
It’s also Momometal of Babymetal’s birthday today! HIT THE J-POP METAL!
In 1995, Bill Berry of R.E.M. undergoes successful brain surgery after collapsing of a brain aneurysm on stage during a show in Switzerland.
In 1978, Whitesnake, which formed after lead singer David Coverdale of Deep Purple left the band, played their first live show in Lincoln, England.
Also in 1978, Van Halen began their first world tour, opening at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago for Journey
Psychedelic country rock band Buffalo Springfield formed on this day in 1966.
In 1994, The Smashing Pumpkins were banned from the UK music TV show Top of the Pops due to the content of their new song Disarm.
Eric Clapton played his final show as a member of The Yardbirds on this day in 1965. Clapton would recommend future Yardbird and Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page for his spot. Page would decline and Jeff Beck would fill the slot
And finally in 1991, the investigative news show Hard Copy ran a story about an FBI investigation about film footage found on a Michigan farm showing what appeared to be a ritual killing. The “victim” of the killing turned out to be one Trent Reznor. The footage was shot for the Nine Inch Nails video for Down In It using a Super 8 camera attached to weather balloons that flew away.
This has been Today in Rock History! Check back tomorrow for your next rock history lesson!
