Alan Cross: Greatest Moments in Rock History #60-51

Moments 60-51

There are such things as the chaos theory and the butterfly effect: tiny changes set up larger ones; it's impossible to predict the future with any degree of certainty, as you can't predict everything that'll have a bearing on an event's outcome.


60. Legs McNeill and a friend liked the Dictators so much that they started a fanzine. The original title was Teenage News, after a New York Dolls song. But then they noticed the cover of the Dictators' Girl Go Crazy album, which featured the band sitting around in leather jackets and looking generally "punk."

The magazine's title was changed to Punk... pretty soon, anyone who appeared in the magazine was referred to as a "punk" / played "punk music." It was hard, fast, primeval rock.. and the magazine was a big hit amongst the music set in those days.


59. Dec. 17, 1977: the Sex Pistols couldn't play for Saturday Night Live because they had problems with immigration and customs. So the producers of the show were forced to hire a band called Elvis Costello and the Attractions. Their hit song at the time was called Radio Radio, but the producers said they couldn't play it because NBC owned a lot of radio stations... they couldn't take the chance of appearing to bash the parent network.

Elvis Costello said they'd play a song called Less Than Zero instead.. but after playing the first few notes of the song, he apologized to the audience and ripped into Radio Radio instead.


58. The Clash was so socialist that they appeared to be almost Communist. But Jan. 26, 1977 rolled around. They signed a 100,000-pound record deal with CBS.. that immediately marked them as sell-outs, even though they did end up achieving their stated goal of "corrupting the industry from within." Even though the Sex Pistols had ironically gouged multiple record labels, the Clash's act was seen as more out-there.. perhaps because of their stated views on things.


57. June 4, 1976: The Sex Pistols' first gig.. the cost was only 50 pence, yet less than 50 people showed up. Members of several bands were in the audience, including New Order. You can see it in the film of the Manchester music scene, 24-Hour Party People.


56. Jan. 14, 1978: The Sex Pistols' last gig with Sid Vicious at the helm. Everybody hated each other at this point.. the audiences were hostile, manager Malcolm McLaren was a pain, Sid Vicious was always wasted and needed protection from his own bodyguard, etc. This was a band ready to blow apart literally within hours, and Johnny Rotten had a good idea of who was getting robbed: basically everyone. Their last gig was at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco.


55. Malcolm McLaren (the aforementioned Sex Pistols manager) and Vivienne Westwood had set up a store called Let It Go. The store sold adult toys and clothing for "teddy boys." They were in New York for a business trip when McLaren decided to check out the legendary club CBGB's. He met Richard Hell of the bands Television and the Heartbreakers. (not the same as Tom Petty's Heartbreakers, I think)

Hell was wearing clothing attached with safety pins because he was so poor, yet McLaren was so taken with this "sense of style" that he took the idea back to England. The store was renamed Sex, and now sold clothing that was held together with items such as safety pins.. that was a big hit among people who went there.


54. Jan. 21, 1989 marked the beginnings of one of the most infamous couples in the history of rock and roll. Kurt Cobain of Nirvana met Courtney Love of Hole at a Nirvana gig in Portland, Oregon. He told a friend that she looked like Nancy Spungen, Sid Vicious' girlfriend who may or may not have died at Sid's hands. Courtney was friends with Jennifer Finch of the band L7, who was a former girlfriend of Dave Grohl. She told Dave that she liked Kurt, and sent him some seashells. In May 1991, they met again at a Butthole Surfers gig. They shared drugs and beer, and struck up an instant friendship.... especially when she punched him in the stomach.


53. In September 1990, Dave Grohl was in a band called Scream. They were on tour, but the bass player had girlfriend problems and had to bail out. Dave wanted to be in another band, so talked to his buddy Buzz Osborne about it. Buzz said that his buddy Kurt Cobain had a band that was experiencing drummer problems, so encouraged Dave to audition.

On Sept. 25, Dave auditioned and got the gig instantly. His first gig with Nirvana was Oct. 11, 1990. That was the beginning of the biggest rock band of the 90's.


52. Nov. 10, 1994: the first-ever professional Internet-only concert was performed on this date, by a Seattle band called Sky Cries Mary. Before then, the only Net concerts had been played by nerds for nerds. The Sky Cries Mary concert was wonky and glitchy, but still a concert technologically. Streaming and audio are common things nowadays, but not then.


51. Mar. 20, 1990: A record store on Hacienda Blvd. in Los Angeles called Warehouse invited Depeche Mode to come and sign autographs. By 9 that night, there were so many people in the record store that the glass of the windows was bending. Traffic had to be stopped around that area. There were 25,000-30,000 people in the parking lot alone at that time, and only 30 security guards to maintain some semblance of order among them.

At 10, Depeche Mode was around.. but the announcement was made that the autograph session had to be cancelled due to the sheer number of people around. When people heard this, they got angry and started a full-scale riot. The LAPD was called in, 7 people were sent to hospital, and the record store was hit with a $25,000 repair bill.