Today in Rock Music History

April 8th

1977 The Clash release their self-titled debut album.

The importance of the Clash can’t be overstated. They were the lightning rod for the Punk movement preaching revolutionary politics. While they often appeared to be chasing the Sex Pistols, by the end of the game, they were far more successful, artistically. Their shows were ferocious.

1994 Smash” is the third studio album by The Offspring.  The effort sells six million copies in the U.S.

2016 Deep Purple (pictured), Cheap Trick, Steve Miller, and Chicago are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame.

Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore (Deep Purple) and vocalist/bassist Peter Cetera (Chicago) are no-shows during a ceremony at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. Guitarist Rick Nielsen (Cheap Trick) and Steve Miller are critical of event ticket prices. Miller also notes the absence of a single female inductee.

2023 Fall Out Boy’s “So Much (for) Stardust” tops Billboard’s Rock Albums chart.   

The band’s first album in five years also debuts at #6 on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 64,000 album-equivalent units.  Fall Out Boy’s eighth album is their seventh consecutive Top 10 effort.   

MORE TODAY IN ROCK…

1947 Steve Howe, guitarist for Yes and Asia, is born in Holloway, North London.

1962 Rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin (born Jeffrey Dean Isbell) starts his life in Lafayette, IN. He is best known for his tenure with Guns N’ Roses.

1963 L7’s Donita Sparks is born. She’s the band’s singer/guitarist. 

1972 Late Slipknot bassist Paul Gray is born in L.A. 

1979 Children Of Bodom’s late guitarist Alexi Laiho is born in Espoo, Finland. 

1979 Dire Straits’ “Sultans Of Swing” peaks at #4 on the U.S. singles chart.

1989 The 1975 singer, Matty Healy, has a birthday. 

1994 The body of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain is found by an electrician working at the Cobain/Love house in Seattle. A suicide note, quoting Neil Young (“It’s better to burn out than to fade away”), is found next to his body – along with a shotgun.

2014 KISS frontman Paul Stanley’s autobiography “Face The Music: A Life Exposed” arrives.  It goes on to debut at #2 (behind “Flash Boys“) on The New York Times print hardcover non-fiction Best Sellers list.

2016 Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band cancel their concert in Greensboro, NC to protest the passing of the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act, also known as the “bathroom bill.” Springsteen condemns lawmakers for passing a bill that “infringes so heavily on the rights” of the state’s LGBT community. “No other group of North Carolinians faces such a burden,” Springsteen writes.

2019 “Play It Loud: Instruments of Rock & Roll,” the first major exhibition in an art museum that is dedicated entirely to electric guitars, opens at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.  More than 130 instruments dating from 1939 to 2017 — played by Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Don Felder (The Eagles), Jimi Hendrix, James Hetfield (Metallica), Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), Elvis Presley, Keith Richards (Rolling Stones), and Sheryl Crow, among others, are on display. 

2022 Big day for Jack White (White Stripes).  First, White plays an instrumental version of the national anthem at Detroit’s Comerica Park as part of the Opening Day festivities for MLB’s Detroit Tigers.  That evening during his homecoming concert at the city’s Masonic Temple Theatre he marries Olivia Jean.  It’s White’s third marriage.

2024 The Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon goes on the NBC rooftop to perform Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” with musical guests Heart to mark the solar eclipse.  Fallon, who is wearing “protective” eyewear removes his glasses at the song’s conclusion revealing glowing eyes.