Are you ready to learn some stuff? It’s October 23rd and here’s what happened Today in Rock History!
While watching a 1984 broadcast on BBC of the ongoing famine in Ethiopia, Bob Geldof begins the Band-Aid relief effort. The effort would release the charity single Do They Know It’s Christmas? just a month later. Just half a year later, Geldof would organize a charity concert to help with relief efforts. That concert was Live Aid.
Staind opened for Limp Bizkit during a 1997 show in their hometown of Hartford, Connecticut. Impressed with what he heard, Bizkit frontman Fred Durst helps get the band signed to a record deal.
Apple introduced the iPod in 2001, bringing the digital music revolution to our pockets. Many users filled the device with songs from their CD collections or with songs downloaded from file-sharing sites (and malware havens) like Napster or LimeWire.
Moving on to birthdays now, we have Robert Trujillo of Metallica!
Other birthdays include Wurzel of Motorhead, Dale Crover of the Melvins, Matt Shultz of Cage the Elephant and Eric Bass of Shinedown!
Need I mention that it’s also Weird Al Yankovic’s birthday?
With releases, we got My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade in 2006!
We also saw the release of Circle of Love from The Steve Miller Band in 1981, Golden State by Bush in 2001, both Chunga’s Revenge by Frank Zappa and Trespass by Genesis in 1970, Incubus’ Morning View in 2001, Gorillaz’s Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez in 2020 and the live album Stop Making Sense from the Talking Heads in 1984!
In 1991, Rage Against the Machine play live for the first time ever at California State University. Their opening? An early, instrumental version of Killing In The Name!
In 1995, Def Leppard set a World Record by playing three different shows on three different continents: Tangier, Morocco in Africa; London, England in Europe; and Vancouver, Canada in North America. Each show was an acoustic set, lasting 45 minutes!
In 1978, while in jail at Riker’s Detention Center in NYC awaiting his trial for the suspected murder of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen, Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols attempts suicide. He failed.
In 1976, Led Zeppelin appear on American television for the first time ever, playing Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert. I unfortunately can’t find video of the performance, so here’s an earlier TV performance from Zep.
And finally, we’re ending on a darker note than usual. As in 1980, Mark David Chapman quit his security job and signed out for the last time. Instead of signing out as he normally did as “Chappy”, he signed out as “John Lennon”. He would murder Lennon just a couple of months later in New York City.
This has been Today in Rock History! Keep on Rocking, keep on Rolling! Check back tomorrow for your next rock history lesson!
