Rocktober 1st
1984 U2’s “The Unforgettable Fire” is released.
U2’s fourth set features “Pride (In the Name Of Love).”
1996 Tool unleashes “Ænima.”
The career-defining set sells over 3-million copies in the U.S.
1996 Matchbox Twenty unfurls “Yourself Or Someone Like You.”
The album contains the group’s first hit “Real World.”
1996 Nirvana’s “From The Muddy Banks of Wishkah” is released.
It’s a live set.
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1948 The late-great Cub Koda (Michael Koda), frontman for Brownsville Station (’69 – ’79), is born in Detroit.
1965 The Byrds cover of Pete Seeger’s “Turn! Turn! Turn!” has been released.
1965 Bob Dylan plays New York’s Carnegie Hall. He does a solo set before being joined by The Band.
1967 The Grateful Dead got busted. The law raids the group’s communal home in San Francisco. They find marijuana – big surprise. After a mere six hours in jail, the group makes bail – a bigger surprise – they are released.
1968 Kevin Griffin has a birthday. Griffin forms Better Than Ezra in ’87 and the group finds success with hits “Good,” “In The Blood,” “A Lifetime” and “Desperately Wanting.”
1970 Jimi Hendrix is buried in Renton – just south of his Seattle hometown. The guitarist passed away in London, from a sleeping pill overdose, 13 days earlier.
1976 David Bowie and Iggy Pop hole up in Berlin to kick their drug addiction – which they do.
1977 Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop” peaks at #3. Years later an Arkansas fan, Bill Clinton, revives the track using it as his presidential campaign theme song in ’92.
1980 Joe Lynn Turner signs on as Rainbow’s vocalist. He replaces Graham Bonnet, who took over when Ronnie James Dio got bounced.
1982 Sony unveils the first compact disc player. The CD proves to be a boon to the record industry as Rock fans rush to stores to replace worn-out vinyl records with more durable CDs.
1990 “No Prayer For The Dying” drops. Though hardly top-drawer Iron Maiden, the album reaches #17 on the Billboard 200 and eventually goes gold.
1994 Eric Clapton’s twelfth solo studio album, “From The Cradle” a Blues covers set, is #1 on the Billboard 200.
1995 The 10th anniversary Farm Aid concert takes place in Louisville, KY. Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, Neil Young, Hootie & The Blowfish and The Dave Matthews Band raise over $1 million to support American farmers.
1998 John Fogerty (Creedence Clearwater Revival) is honored with the 2,122nd star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The star is located at 7000 Hollywood Blvd.
2004 After much debate and a postponement, the Melbourne City Council names a street after AC/DC. The street, more like an alley, was known as ‘Corporation Lane’. It is now the charming ‘AC/DC Lane’.
2004 Bruce Palmer dies of a heart attack in Belleville, Ontario, Canada. He co-founded Buffalo Springfield with Young, Stephen Stills, Richie Furay, and Dewey Martin.
2005 Rush’s Alex Lifeson is countersued by two police officers who allege that the guitarist assaulted them at an ’03 New Year’s Eve celebration in Naples, FL. The altercation resulted in the arrest of Lifeson and his son. Lifeson’s suit claims the deputies used excessive force during the incident. Both sides seek unspecified financial reparations.
2005 Disturbed appear at a National Hot Rod Association race in Joliet, IL, where they are co-sponsoring one of the drivers.
2006 Alice Cooper and The Doors guitarist Robby Krieger land on Golf Digest‘s list of the Top 100 Musician Golfers. Both Cooper and Krieger credit the game with helping them overcome substance-abuse problems.
2007 Suicide Solution. Ozzy Osbourne and his wife, Sharon, announce they have a suicide agreement that will come into effect should either of them suffer from a neurodegenerative disease such as Alzheimer’s, which took the life of Sharon’s father. “We believe 100 percent in euthanasia, so (we) have drawn up plans to go to the assisted suicide flat in Switzerland if we ever have an illness that affects our brains,” reveals Sharon.
2007 The Police are honored by the French minister of culture for their contribution to music. Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland are each named chevaliers of the Order of the Arts and Letters. The group is in Paris as part of their European tour.
2010 “The Social Network,” chronicling the founding of Facebook, is in theaters. The score for the David Fincher film is the work of Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) and collaborator Atticus Ross. “Atticus Ross and I have been on a creative roll so I asked him if he wanted to work on this with me and we signed on,” says Reznor.
2010 Soundgarden’s ‘best of’ compilation “Telephantasm,” out for less than a week, goes platinum (selling one million copies).
2011 KISS bassist Gene Simmons marries his longtime (keyword “longtime”) girlfriend Shannon Tweed. Their children Sophie, 19, and Nick, 22, are in attendance.
2012 Floor Jansen performs live with Nightwish for the first time at the Showbox Sodo in Seattle. This comes after the abrupt departure of the band’s lead singer of five years, Anette Olzon.
2012 No Doubt settles a ’09 lawsuit against Activision over the use of band members’ likenesses in the video game Band Hero. A game feature allows players to perform other artists’ songs using the likenesses of No Doubt frontwoman Gwen Stefani and other band members. Terms of the settlement are not disclosed.
2013 As their frontman, Ian Watkins faces serious criminal charges (conspiring to commit rape) the Lostprophets announce they are breaking up but leave the door open to future ventures under a different name.
2015 Mötörhead unveils their own branded whisky (even though lead vocalist and bassist Lemmy Kilmister has dropped whiskey in favor of vodka for ‘health reasons’). Mötörhead Drinks (which already includes beer, wine and vodka) is a collaborative effort between the band and Mackmyra, a Swedish distillery. Initially, the whiskey is only available in Sweden.
2016 Tool’s Maynard James Keenan publishes his official biography “A Perfect Union Of Contrary Things.” Co-written by lifelong associate Sarah Jensen, the book “traces Keenan’s journey from his Midwest childhood to his years in the army to his time in art school, from his stint at a Boston pet shop to his place in the international spotlight, and his influence on contemporary music.”
2018 Bad Wolves’ Tommy Vext is hospitalized at Queens Medical Center in Nottingham, U.K. with a “severe viral bronchial infection.” The symptoms are similar to pneumonia with high fever and heart arrhythmia.
2018 The Australian government celebrates AC/DC’s 45th anniversary by releasing a collection of coins. The Royal Australian Mint (the Mint) and Questacon – The National Science and Technology Centre partner to strike AC/DC “Thunderstruck” coins with a bolt of man-made lightning.
2018 An extinct marine species is named after the North Carolina band Between The Buried And Me. It bears the name “Amphilimna intersepultosetme,” which is the Latin for “between the buried and me,” and lived 67 million years ago.
2021 Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale and the guitar string jewelry company Strung announce an exclusive line of necklaces and bracelets made out of Hale’s own personal guitar strings. A portion of the proceeds go toward the non-profit organization MusiCares.
2022 Five Finger Death Punch topped Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart with “Times Like These.” The song is from the band’s ninth album, “AfterLife.”
