May 4th

May 4th

1994 Gin Blossoms’ “New Miserable Experience” is certified for selling over four million copies.

That’s according to the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA).

The album, released three years earlier, has “Hey Jealousy” and “Found Out About You.”

1996 “Evil Empire” is #1 in the U.S.

Rage Against The Machine’s sophomore album sells 250,000 copies in the week of its release. The set contains the tracks “People Of The Sun” and “Bulls On Parade.”

In an ’83 speech during the Cold War U.S. President Ronald Reagan referred to the Soviet Union as an “evil empire” and as “the focus of evil in the modern world”. He asserted that the conflict was a battle between good and evil.

2018 Shinedown release their 6th studio album “Attention Attention.”  

Lead single “Devil” has already gone to #1 on the Active Rock chart. 

2024 Guitarist Nita Strauss marries her drummer/manager Josh Villalta.   

Alice Cooper and Disturbed singer David Draiman attend the event at The Hollywood Roosevelt hotel in L.A. Strauss is in Cooper’s band and Draiman sang “Dead Inside” on Strauss’ “Call Of The Void” album. 

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1951 Mötley Crüe guitarist Mick Mars (Robert Alan Deal) is born in Terre Haute, IN.

1956 Gene Vincent’s records “Be-Bop-A-Lula” in Nashville.  The song goes on to peak at #7 on the pop chart selling two million copies within a year.

1970 Four students are shot a killed by Ohio National Guard troops at Kent State University during an anti-Vietnam War demonstration. In response, Neil Young composes “Ohio,” one of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s best songs.

1972 Green Day’s Mike Dirnt (Michael Ryan Pritchard), is born in Rodeo, CA.

1973 Led Zeppelin launch the “biggest and most profitable Rock & Roll tour in the history of the United States.” Predicted to gross over $3 million, the tour actually takes in $4 million.  Not much today but huge then. 

1974 C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, do the loco-motion with me. Grand Funk Railroad’s cover Little Eva’s ’62 hit “Loco-Motion” goes to #1.

1977 “The Beatles At The Hollywood Bowl” is released. The album is a compilation of two shows; one in ’64 and the other a year later. There’s a lot of girls screaming but it shows what The Beatles could do live.

1996 Stone Temple Pilots rule Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Songs chart for a week with “Big Bang Baby.”

2004 Former Guns N’ Roses members, Slash and Duff McKagan, file a lawsuit against GN’R frontman Axl Rose alleging he nixed movie music licensing deals that would have generated at least $1 million.

2006 Jon Bon Jovi is honored for his charitable efforts during the Help USA organization’s annual Tribute Awards Dinner in New York. Help USA provides services to the nation’s homeless.

2007 Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger punches a man in the face outside a Vancouver, BC, nightclub. According to reports the ‘victim’ harassed Kroeger by shouting ” Nickelback sucks.”

2010 Poison’s Bret Michaels is discharged from Barrow Neurological Institute in Arizona after suffering a brain hemorrhage two weeks earlier. He receives on-going physical therapy at another facility.

2010 Jason Newstead’s first art exhibition opens at San Francisco’s Micaela Gallery. “My purpose has shifted from making crazy and colorful music, to making crazy and colorful paintings,” says the former Metallica bassist (’86-’01). “I remain as disciplined, self-motivated, and dedicated to my art, as I have been.”

2012 Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch, the founding member of the Beastie Boys, dies at age 47 following a 3-year battle with a rare cancer.

2017 A federal judge dismisses a lawsuit that claims Ozzy Osbourne swindled former band member Bob Daisley out of at least $2 million in songwriting royalties for songs composed in the ‘80s.  The ruling stipulates that the dispute must be decided through arbitration. 

2023 Florida native Tom Petty is recognized by the University of Florida with an honorary Doctor Of Music degree.  Bruce Petty, Tom’s brother, accepts the posthumous doctorate on his behalf at the university’s spring commencement ceremony. 

2023 The Minnesota Senate votes 55-5 to rename the portion of State Highway 5 that runs past Prince’s Paisley Park museum and studios “Prince Rogers Nelson Memorial Highway.”   

2023 Ted Nugent’s “Adios Mofo ‘23” farewell tour receives an early kiss-off when his concert in Birmingham, AL is canceled due to a backlash surrounding his ‘radical’ political and social views (transphobic comments).  Nugent says those who protested the show are “liars & haters drunk on stupid incapable to debate me.”

2023 D Generation vocalist/guitarist Jesse Malin suffers a spinal stroke leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.