23 AUGUST
In Music History
1989 Ric Ocasek of The Cars marries the model Paulina Porizkova. They met when she starred in the video for the Cars hit Drive.
1987 At a 20th anniversary "Summer Of Love" celebration concert in Calaveras County Fairgrounds in Angel Camp, California, featuring the Grateful Dead, a man who escaped from a drug treatment facility shoots a policeman and is then shot dead.
1980 The Heatwave Festival, known as the "New Wave Woodstock," goes down at Mosport Park near Toronto. Performers include Elvis Costello, The B-52s, The Pretenders, and Talking Heads, who debut songs from their upcoming album, Remain In Light, and introduce a new touring band that includes keyboard player Bernie Worrell and guitarist Adrian Belew.
1980 David Bowie's "Ashes To Ashes" hits #1 on the UK chart.
1978 The Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas is born in New York City. His parents are business mogul John Casablancas, founder of Elite Model Management, and Jeanette Christiansen, a Danish model who was crowned Miss Denmark of 1965. In 2001, Julian's band reinvents guitar rock with their debut album, Is This It.
1978 Steve Martin's "King Tut" is certified Gold.
1975 Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds' "Fallin' in Love" hits #1 in the US, where it will stay for one week.
1969 Johnny Cash's album Johnny Cash At San Quentin, which is the soundtrack to a documentary of the same name featuring Cash performing at the prison, hits #1 for the first of four weeks.
1969 The Rolling Stones' "Honky Tonk Women" hits #1 in America for the first of four weeks.
1967 The Beatles record "Your Mother Should Know" at Chappell Recording Studios in London. It's their last session before the death of their manager, Brian Epstein, who passes away four days later.
1966 The Beatles play Shea Stadium for the second time. This one doesn't sell out, as they have been playing other shows in the area.
1962 John Lennon marries Cynthia Powell at the Registrar office in Liverpool with Paul McCartney as best man. His wedding night is spent playing a gig with The Beatles at the nearby Riverpark Ballroom.
1961 Dean DeLeo (guitarist for Stone Temple Pilots) is born in Newark, New Jersey.
1954 Perez Prado records "Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White."
1951 Rock musician Mark Hudson (of The Hudson Brothers) is born in Portland, Oregon. He also co-wrote several Aerosmith songs, including the 1993 hit "Livin' On The Edge."
Call Him Dr. May
2007Brian May of Queen gets a degree from London's Imperial College. It's not one of those honorary degrees either - he earned a PhD in astrophysics. He would have gotten it sooner, but he was busy being a rock star.
Read more23 AUGUST
Featured Events
2008 Madonna starts her Sticky & Sweet Tour (supporting her album Hard Candy) with a show at Cardiff, Wales. Her first excursion under her Live Nation contract, it breaks the record she set on her 2006 Confessions Tour for biggest-selling tour by a solo artist: the 85 dates earn about $408 million, second only to The Rolling Stones' A Bigger Bang Tour at $558 million.
1994 Jeff Buckley's first and only album, Grace, is released to critical acclaim.More
1994 For no apparent reason the British duo The KLF burn £1 million on the Isle of Jura in Scotland.More
1974 John Lennon claims to see a UFO from his New York apartment. He describes it as an archetypal flying saucer, surrounded by lights with a red one on top. In his next album, Walls and Bridges, he includes this note in the booklet: "On the 23rd August 1974 at 9 o'clock I saw a U.F.O. - J.L."
1973 With salsa music hot in New York City, the label Fania Records showcases its acts at a concert in Yankee Stadium that draws a crowd of 63,000. Willie Colón, Johnny Pacheco and Larry Harlow are among the performers.
1970 Lou Reed plays his last gig with The Velvet Underground at the club Max's Kansas City in New York. His father brings him home to Long Island and puts him to work in his accounting firm, where he stays for two years before signing a solo deal.
1963 In the UK, The Beatles release "She Loves You," which becomes the best-selling UK single of all time, a record that isn't broken until 1977, when Paul McCartney releases "Mull Of Kintyre."
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