Rock History

2024 – Godsmack’s “Truth” is #1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart. The track, from the band’s eighth album, “Lighting Up The Sky,” is their 13th song to top the survey. 

2012 – Alice In Chains co-founder Jerry Cantrell is given the Stevie Ray Vaughan Award at the eighth annual MusiCares MAP Fund benefit concert at Club Nokia in L.A. The honor is for the guitarist’s dedication and support of the MusiCares MAP Fund, and for his commitment to helping other addicts with the addiction and recovery process.

2008 – Everclear play the first of two shows for U.S. soldiers when they take the stage at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. “There are folks in uniform all over the world, and at home, looking out for us-and to play for them is an honor,” says frontman Art Alexakis. A second concert for military personnel is on Oahu five weeks later (7/6).

2009 – Ozzy Osbourne files a lawsuit against his Black Sabbath bandmate Tony Iommi (pictured) over rights to the group’s name. Iommi is accused of illegally registering with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as the sole owner of the Sabbath moniker. “The Black Sabbath trademark should be equally owned by Geezer (Butler), Bill (Ward), Tony and I as (that is) the true Black Sabbath lineup,” writes Osbourne in a statement.

2014 – The Rolling Stones top Billboard magazine’s list of the top 25-selling live acts of the past 25 years grossing more than $1.5 billion on the road since ’90, playing more than 500 shows to almost 20 million fans. U2 is in second place with Bruce Springsteen third, earning $1.2 billion gross over 700-plus shows in front of 15 million fans.

1968 – The Iron Butterfly record their seventeen-minute epic “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” at Ultrasonic Studios in Hempstead, Long Island, New York. The west coast band performs the song as part of a soundcheck while waiting for their producer to arrive and are unaware they are being recorded. According to VH1 (in ’09), the title track of the multi-platinum album is the 24th greatest Hard Rock song of all time.

2017 – In the week following Chris Cornell’s death, his work (solo, with Soundgarden and Audioslave) is streamed 32.5 million times (up 549%), his album catalog sells 38,000 copies (up 1,732%), and his songs garner 144,000 downloads (up 2,222%).  The top song is Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun.”  

2007 – “Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World’s End” opens. Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards plays the father of Capt. Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp). “(It was) just something to do,” says Richards, who sees similarities between being a pirate and life in a Rock group. “Both are ways to make a good dishonest living.”

2022 – Iggy Pop receives the prestigious Polar Music Prize, Sweden’s highest music award. The prize honors two laureates every year to “celebrate music in all its various forms.” 

2010 – Bret Michaels (Poison) wins Donald Trump’s reality show Celebrity Apprentice despite suffering a brain hemorrhage and a stroke, and the discovery of a hole in his heart. Michaels appears on the show’s season finale, against doctor’s orders. His $250,000 prize is donated to the American Diabetes Association.