Scott and Slash Dance With Mr. Brownstone
Professional Bad Boy of Rock, Scott Weiland, also famous for being the vocalist for Stone Temple Pilots, Velvet Revolver and Stone Temple Pilots, has managed to stay alive long enough to turn another year older, having been born on October 27, 1967. I guess you might know you have a drug problem when you are kicked out of a band that’s made up of former heroin addicts. Happy Birthday, Scott!
On This Date, August 27th, in 1967: The Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein died of a sleeping pill overdose. News of Epstein’s death reached The Beatles while they were on their now infamous retreat with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The back story of Brian Epstein’s life while he worked with The Beatles is actually pretty intriguing and crazy and obsessive and all that good stuff. I recommend checking out the book The Love You Make by Beatles’ camp insiders Peter Brown and Steven Gaines for lots of good dirt on Epstein and the whole band. The book gets a bad rap for being such a sordid tell-all, but you know what they say, “they wouldn’t print it if it wasn’t true.”
On This Date, July 14th in 1967: The Who kicked off their first large scale U.S. tour at the Memorial Coliseum in Portland, Oregon as the opening act for Herman’s Hermits.
On This Date, June 24th, in 1967: Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” entered the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart where it would later peak at Number 5 (In the UK it hit #1 on June 8th). Lyrically inspired a party the band members attended where everyone was tripping on LSD (I’m pretty sure The Beatles were at that party) the song was written by the band around a melody composed by the group’s organist, Matthew Fisher, who was inspired by the chord progression of Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Orchestral Suite in D,” composed between 1725 and 1739. As of 2009, “A Whiter Shade Of Pale” is the most played song in the last 75 years in public places in the UK. What a great song.
On This Day In 1967: The Beatles released the groundbreaking concept album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The album was a worldwide critical and commercial success, spending a total of 27 weeks at the top of the UK Album Chart and 15 weeks at number one on the American Billboard 200. A defining album in the emerging psychedelic rock style, Sgt. Pepper was critically acclaimed upon release and won four Grammy Awards in 1968. Often recognized by prominent critics and publications as one of the most influential albums in the history of rock music, Sgt. Pepper frequently ranks at or near the top of published lists of the greatest albums of all time. In 2003, the album was placed at number 1 in the Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
