April 19th
1980 – R.E.M. play their first show as R.E.M. It takes place at 11:11 Koffee Club in Athens, GA in front of 150 people. Police shut down the show because the venue is unlicensed.
April 18th
2013 – Heart is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame during a ceremony at the Nokia Theater in L.A. “They (Heart’s Ann and Nancy Wilson) blasted any sexist barriers in front of them,” says Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell in his induction speech.
April 17th
2023 – The surviving members of Soundgarden and vocalist Chris Cornell’s widow, Vicky, end their long-running legal conflict and reach “an amicable out of court resolution” over the final songs that the band and Chris were working on.
April 16th
2024 – Green Day’s third album “Dookie” is selected for inclusion in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Viewed as one of the defining albums of the ’90s, it contains the tracks “Longview,” “Basket Case” and “When I Come Around.”
April 15th
2023 – Paramore’s Haley Williams tells an audience during a show in Cardiff, Wales that Ticketmaster “need to get their shit together.” Since the end of the pandemic, concert ticket prices have skyrocketed, gouging music fans.
April 14th
2023 – Blink-182 perform live for the first time since the return of guitarist Tom DeLonge, who left in ’15 but returned in late ’22. The Coachella appearance is followed by an extensive tour.
April 13th
2019 – Pearl Jam are the official Record Store Day ambassador for independent record stores around the world. “(Record stores are) a place to learn. It’s a place to have fun. And it’s a place to discover new music,” Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready says in a statement.”
April 12th
1968 – Life magazine does a story on The Doors but, like so many others, focuses on singer Jim Morrison. They push the singer’s myth right over the top with the quote “he appears in public and on his records to be moody, temperamental, enchanted in the mind and extremely stoned on something.”
April 11th
2022 – Bring Me The Horizon joins Spotify’s one-billion streams club (which includes Metallica and Linkin Park) with their fourth studio album, “Sempiternal.”
April 10th
2014 – Nirvana enters the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
KISS, with original members fighting amongst themselves and refusing to perform together, Peter Gabriel and Linda Ronstadt are also inducted.