1 October

Pick a Day

1 OCTOBER

In Music History

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2018 The French singer-songwriter Charles Aznavour dies at 94. His compositions include "Yesterday, When I Was Young" and "If You Go Away."

2018 Peggy Sue Gerron, subject of the Buddy Holly hit "Peggy Sue," dies at 78.

2012 Chris Thile, the mandolin player known for his work with Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers, wins a Genius grant from the MacArthur Foundation. The foundation typically accepts nominees through anonymous selection, and when Thile receives the congratulatory phone call, he thinks its a political robo-call until his agent looks up the number.

2011 Meat Loaf performs at the AFL Grand Final in Melbourne between Collingwood and Geelong. Suffering from a hemorrhaging vocal cord, he struggles through the 12-minute set and is blasted in the press. The singer responds by calling AFL organizers "the cheapest people I've ever seen in my life."More

2010 Justin Timberlake portrays Napster co-founder Sean Parker in the Oscar-nominated film The Social Network, which depicts the founding of Facebook.

2007 A judge awards Kevin Federline custody of his two children with Britney Spears, reasoning that she can't be trusted due to her "habitual, frequent and continuous use of controlled substances and alcohol." Spears starts getting her life together a few months later after her family commits her to a psychiatric institution.

2007 Outside the Soho Revue Bar in London, Laura Marling and her band perform a set in front of shocked and ecstatic fans. The club won't allow the 17-year-old Marling inside to perform because it violates their strict 18 & over policy, so she takes it to the streets. She later returns to the club in February 2008 for an encore of sorts, performing indoors and onstage to celebrate the release of her debut, Alas, I Cannot Swim, and her 18th birthday.

2004 Bruce Palmer (bassist for Buffalo Springfield) dies of a heart attack in Belleville, Ontario, Canada, at age 58.

2002 Ms. Dynamite is the big winner at the UK Music of Black Origin (MOBO) Awards, where she is named Best Newcomer and UK Act of the Year, and her song "It Takes More" wins Best Single. She fades fast, releasing only one more album in the '00s.

2002 The White Stripes play a free show in New York's Union Square Park, treating a large lunchtime crowd to a set full of covers and nuggets from the group's three albums.

2002 Barry White's label reveals that the singer has been hospitalized with kidney failure. Unable to get a transplant, he dies nine months later.

2002 Good Charlotte release their second album, The Young and the Hopeless.

1998 John Fogerty gets a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7000 Hollywood Blvd.

1996 A collection of live Nirvana performances is released on the album From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah.

1996 Fountains of Wayne release their self-titled debut album, which took just five days to record.

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Midnight Oil Offer Overdue Apology At Sydney Olympics

2000

Australian rock band Midnight Oil play their hit "Beds Are Burning" at the closing ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Sydney. Their black outfits are emblazoned with the word "sorry," a symbolic olive branch towards the Aboriginals who were forced from their lands by a government that refuses to apologize.

Midnight Oil's performance is also a personal message to Prime Minister John Howard, who has refused to offer an apology to the native inhabitants on behalf of Australia. Ironically, "Beds Are Burning" - which deals with Aboriginal land rights - is his favorite Oils song. The incendiary track was the breakout single from their 1987 album, Diesel and Dust, which was inspired by the band's tour of struggling indigenous communities in the Australian Outback. More than a decade later, the topic of reconciliation is still a hot-button issue among Australians. Several protests are planned on behalf of the Aborigines for the Olympics ceremony - until the event's organizers make it clear the issue will not be ignored. The opening ceremony pays tribute to indigenous culture and features Aborigine sprinter Cathy Freeman (who wins the gold medal in the 400-metre final) lighting the Olympic Flame. Juan Antonio Samaranch, president of the International Olympic Committee, also mentions the cause in his opening and closing speeches. As a crowd of over 100,000 stood in support of Midnight Oil's performance, as Prime Minister Howard remained seated, the band realized they were delivering a message far beyond their five-man outfit: "It wasn't Midnight Oil's gesture," Oils vocalist Peter Garrett recalled in 2016. "It was really a gesture for everybody who felt that way."

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