April 5th
1984 The Best Group Video honor at the American Video Awards goes to The Police for “Every Breath You Take.”
The black and white clip was the handy work of the team of Godley & Creme.
“Synchronicity,” with “Every Breath You Take,” is the Police’s best-selling album. In addition, it was the group’s last effort before Sting goes solo.
1994 Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain kills himself.
Cobain was in rehab for less than a week before walking away.
Cobain’s mother files a missing person’s report. The very next day, Cobain shot himself in the head with a Remington 20-gauge shotgun in the garage apartment of his Lake Washington (Seattle) mansion. His body is discovered three days later.
2002 Alice In Chains singer Layne Staley dies from a drug overdose.
2023 Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider is eliminated from “The Masked Singer.”
The hammer falls after Snider performs Elvis Presley’s “Jailhouse Rock.” Upon elimination, panelists try to figure out the identity of a singer who is in an elaborate costume. Nobody pegs Snider who is dressed as “Doll.” Panelists guess he’s Iggy Pop, Gene Simmons (KISS), David Lee Roth (Van Halen), or Austin Butler, who played Elvis in a biopic.
MORE TODAY IN ROCK….
1966 Mike McCready is born. He becomes the guitarist for Pearl Jam.
1985 5,000 radio stations simultaneously play the African relief benefit single “We Are The World,” with vocals by Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Steve Perry (Journey), and many others.
1986 John Mellencamp’s ode to Rock n’ Roll, “R.O.C.K. In the USA” peaks at #2 on the U.S. charts.
1997 Aerosmith’s twelfth album “Nine Lives” tops the Billboard 200.
2002 R.E.M.’s Peter Buck is acquitted of ‘air-rage’ charges resulting from an incident on a Trans-Atlantic flight. U2’s Bono testified on Buck’s behalf.
2005 Based on their cultural or historical significance, James Brown’s “Live At The Apollo” (’65), the Beach Boys “Pet Sounds” (’66), The Allman Brothers Band’s “At The Fillmore East” (’77) and Nirvana’s “Nevermind” (’91) are added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry.
2009 “Itch, Love Stories About Heroin,” author Tanya Vece’s biography about the life and tragic death of Alice In Chains singer Layne Staley, is in bookstores. “The perception that he was just this junkie who got caught up in the music business, that’s not it at all,” says Vece, the eldest daughter of Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx. “I want people to know Layne for who he really was.”
2011 Avenged Sevenfold’s “So Far Away” is the third single from their fifth studio album, “Nightmare.” The song, a tribute to the band’s original drummer, the late Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan, goes on to top Billboard’s Hot Mainstream Rock chart.
2011 Mötley Crüe singer Vince Neil is charged with battery and disorderly conduct for allegedly jabbing his ex-girlfriend, Alicia Jacobs, in the Shimmer Cabaret lounge at the Las Vegas Hilton twelve days earlier.
2016 Tom DeLonge, ex-Blink 182 launches a cross-media series, “Sekret Machines.” The first installment is a 704-page hardcover novel, “Sekret Machines Book 1: Chasing Shadows,” which DeLonge wrote with author A.J. Hartley.
2016 Rolling Stones’ first exhibition showcasing hundreds of items from their career opens at the Saatchi Gallery in London. However, the group is banned from performing on the lawn outside the venue because residents in the affluent neighborhood overrule the Stones’ proposal.
2019 Soundgarden celebrates their 35th anniversary by launching a new vinyl album-of-the-month club starting with “Superunknown.”
2024 Firehouse singer CJ Snare dies of cardiac arrest at age 64. At the time of his death, Snare had taken a hiatus from the band due to health concerns.
