Rock and metal History, a day like today May 5
- May 5, 2016
- 2 min read
1963: On a recommendation by George Harrison Dick Rowe Head of A&R at Decca records, (and the man who turned down The Beatles) went to see The Rolling Stones play at Crawdaddy Club, London. The band were signed to the label within a week.
1967: The Kinks released Waterloo Sunset as a single which went on to peak at No.2 on the UK chart. Songwriter and Kinks singer Ray Davies later stated that the song was originally entitled 'Liverpool Sunset', after his love for Liverpool and Merseybeat.
1972: The first day of the three day Bickershaw Festival, Wigan, England, with The Grateful Dead, Dr John, Donovan, The Kinks, Captain Beefheart, Hawkwind, America, Family, Country Joe MacDonald, Wishbone Ash, New Riders Of The Purple Sage, Brinsley Schwarz and the Flamin Groovies.
1973: David Bowie scored his first UK No.1 album when 'Aladdin Sane' started a five-week run at the top, featuring the single 'Drive In Saturday'. The follow-up to his breakthrough The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, the name of the album is a pun on "A Lad Insane".
1983:The Stranglers 'Golden Brown' was named most performed work of 1982 at the 28th Ivor Novello Awards. The single had become a UK hit after the comparatively conservative BBC Radio Two made it 'single of the week', a surprising step considering the band were almost as notorious as Sex Pistols only a few short years before.
1990: During a North American tour Nirvana appeared at the Einstein-A-Go-Go in Jacksonville Beach, Florida.
1992: Radiohead released 'The Drill EP', their first record in the UK. The band were still called "On a Friday" when the songs for this EP were recorded; they changed their name to Radiohead the following month.
1995: Former Guns N' Roses drummer Steven Adler was arrested on a felony count of possession of heroin, as well as two misdemeanour drug charges.
1996: Cranberries singer Dolores O'Riordan received both a public apology and a donation of £7,500 ($12,750) to the Warchild charity from The Sport newspaper after they ran a story claiming she had performed a gig in Hamburg without wearing any underwear.
Rage Against The Machine went to No.1 on the US album chart with 'Evil Empire'. The album's title is taken from the phrase "evil empire", which was used by former US President Ronald Reagan and many conservatives in describing the former Soviet Union. The album won the 1996 Grammy award for Best Metal Performance.
2015 :American rock bassist Craig Gruber died of prostate cancer in Florida aged 63. He is best known as the original bassist in Rainbow and also played in Elf with vocalist Ronnie James Dio and worked with guitarist Gary Moore.
Born on this day
1948: Bill Ward, drums, Black Sabbath, (1970 UK No.4 single 'Paranoid'). The band's self-titled album was voted as the best British rock albums ever by Kerrang! in 2005.
1951: Rex Goh, guitar, Air Supply, (1980 UK No.11 single 'All Out Of Love', 1981 US No.1 single 'The One That You Love').
1962: Kevin Paul Mooney, bass, Adam And The Ants, (1981 UK No.1 single 'Stand And Deliver' plus 15 other UK Top 40 singles).
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