Today In Music, January 27th

From the Rockmine Almanac for today (Tuesday, 27th January):

Birth

1961. Gillian Gilbert (New Order) born in Manchester, England.

On Tour

1977. Patti Smith falls fifteen feet from the stage at a gig in Tampa, Florida. She fractures the seventh vertebrae in her neck and requires 22 stitches.

In Court

1992. Country singer Sydney Devine is fined £ 75 and has 3 penalty points added to his driving licence at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court. Although he was not in court, the singer admitted driving at 79 m.p.h. on a 60 m.p.h. stretch of the A77 on October 24th last year.

In Hospital

1984. Michael Jackson‘s hair catches fire during the filming of a Pepsi advert. He is rushed to the Cedars Sinai Medical Center suffering second and third degree burns to the scalp. Media interest in the story forces hospital authorities to move Jackson to Brotman Memorial Hospital for treatment.

On Television

2006. The Ellen Degeneres Show. (Syndicated, U.S.A.). Guests include Heather Headley who performs “In My Mind”

Death

1967. Italian pop singer Luigi Tenco shoots himself in a fit of depression having been eliminated from the finals of the San Remo Festival. Police say the 27 year old took his life with a single pistol shot to the head. He left a suicide note saying he had “devoted the best years of my life to singing and writing songs” and was doing this “as an act of protest against the public and the jury” for their selections for the final. Tenco was not alone. Some big names including Marianne Faithfull never made it into the final.

Babble

It’s odd how differently we see things as the years pass. Browsing old copies of Melody maker for TV listings, I came across news of a blanket radio and TV ban on a Parlophone single. Titled “Nothing Better To Do”, it was released on July 3rd, 1964, and took the mickey out of mods and rockers. The wording suggested that they had nothing better to do than invade towns.

Whether the broadcasters thought it would be a call to arms for the two factions is unclear but ABC-TV, producers of “Thank Your Lucky Stars” said, “The record is not in the best interests of the general public”. MM merely said “the BBC have shunned the disc”.

Odd then, to think that the artist singing the song would later go on to become a much-loved national institution within the BBC – Bill Oddie OBE. 

 

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Today In Music, October 2nd

From the Rockmine Almanac for today (Thursday, 2nd October):

Birth

1949. Richard Hell (Voidoids/Dim Stars) born Richard Myers in Lexington, Kentucky.

On Stage

1998. Michael Stipe, Patti Smith and composer Philip Glass stage a one-off performance in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan. The event, seen by a crowd of 4,000, honoured the memory of poet Allen Ginsberg and raised funds for Jewel Heart, the Tibetan Buddhist organization.

In Custody

1967. Narcotics agents raid the Grateful Dead‘s communal house in San Francisco, arresting eleven people including Bob Weir and Pigpen. They then had to let everyone go as no-one had thought to get a warrant before smashing the front door in!

In Court

2000. The inspiration for Paul Anka‘s 1970’s hit, “Having My Baby” filed for separation from the singer. Anne Anka’s petition cited irreconcilable differences for the decision to leave the man she married in 1963.

Paul Bloch, a spokesman for Paul Anka said the couple are slitting on amicable terms and remain the best of friends. He said the couple would be together for Thanksgiving with their five daughters.

On Television

1978. Disco (ZDF, West Germany) Boomtown Rats; Andrea Jurgens; Clout; Klaus Zufall; Melanie; Suzi Quatro; Peter Orloff and Smokie, seen here with “Mexican Girl”

Death

1990. Blues saxophonist Evelyn Young dies in Memphis’ Methodist Hospital from heart failure.

Babble

It’s been an odd couple of weeks. The blog, as you’ll has seen, hasn’t been up. This is mainly due to problems that I’m not going to go into. Suffice it to say that I think these are now over. 

I’ve used some of that time to concentrate on another blog, this time for the Two Red Shoes Ballroom in Elgin. I’m in Elgin as I type this although I’m starting to feel that it’s rather like Narnia (as someone else described it). I’m hoping to complete my research on the bands that played there today but I’m almost wondering why.

Although I’ve never finished my Ballerina Ballroom blog, it had (and still seems to have) a buzz about it that is sadly missing with Elgin’s venue. The local Nairn blog, the “Gurn From Nurn” described my Ballerina blog as an “exciting project” but there seems to be none of that here. There seems to be a real apathy about the concept. Maybe as an archivist and compulsive list maker, I assumed that others would share my interest but by and large that doesn’t seem to have happened.

It was pointed out to me that with my Nairn blog I had undertaken a fairly impressive but very cheap publicity campaign that saw flyers distributed around the town and posters put in most of the shops. While that was done at the time of the “Ballerina ballroom Cinema Of Dreams Festival” and the Highland Games, it still brought people flocking to the site. 

Maybe with Elgin, the struggle is that there are no other things happening, that the audience is much larger and more sophisticated and the financial woes of the country have given people something more important to think about that the history of one of Scotland’s old ballrooms.

I suppose only time will tell how wrong I got this.

One other thing, I am in part here to decide on whether or not to stage my memorabilia exhibition. The last agreed date for it was next week but there seems to be no response to my press releases and my desire to do it seems to fade with the last warmth of summer. Part of me refuses to give up on an idea that was great but what is the point of flogging a dead horse?

Who knows, things may improve before the end of the day.

 

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