26 October

Pick a Day

26 OCTOBER

In Music History

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2019 The beat-up sweater Kurt Cobain wore on Nirvana's MTV Unplugged special sells at auction for $334,000. After Cobain died, Courtney Love gave it to the family's nanny, who sold it to pay for cancer treatments.

2018 50 Cent uses Groupon to buy 200 tickets to an upcoming Ja Rule concert for $15 each, just so the seats will be empty. The rappers have been feuding since the '90s.

2013 Al Johnson (co-founder of The Unifics) dies at age 65.

2010 Results of Ozzy Osbourne's genome sequencing are revealed. The study shows that Ozzy has a very high predisposition for alcohol and cocaine addiction, and that he was partly descended from Neanderthals.

2007 Acting on the advice of director David Lynch, folk-pop icon and former student of the Maharishi, Donovan, begins drawing up plans for The Invincible Donovan University, a college for studying transcendental meditation.

2004 Apple introduces the U2 iPod, the first available in a color other than white (it's black with a red click wheel). It's promoted in a commercial where the band performs their new single, "Vertigo." This is the first time U2 allow their music be used in commercials and the start of a cozy relationship with Apple, which features their music on the iTunes store.

2004 Sugarland's debut album, Twice the Speed of Life, is released. It is the only Sugarland album to feature Kristen Hall, who leaves the band in 2005.

2001 Courtney Love plays her first-ever solo show at the Ventura Theatre in Ventura, California.

2001 The science fiction film Donnie Darko, starring Jake Gyllenhaal as a troubled teen who suffers from hallucinations, premieres in US theaters. The movie features Gary Jules' haunting cover of Tears For Fears' 1982 song "Mad World."More

2000 The tree from U2's song "One Tree Hill" is taken down. Located in Auckland, New Zealand, the tree had been attacked by activists and had to be removed.

2000 The short-lived sitcom Cursed (aka The Weber Show), starring Steven Weber, debuts on NBC with its theme song, "Miss Fortune," written and performed by Liz Phair.

1999 Incubus release their breakthrough album, Make Yourself. The big hit is the third single, "Drive," which takes the long road and peaks at #9 in July 2001.

1999 German singer Rex Gildo dies at age 63, three days after jumping from the window of his apartment.

1999 Country singer Hoyt Axton, who wrote the Three Dog Night hit "Joy to the World," dies of a heart attack at age 61.

1998 Marilyn Manson begin their Mechanical Animals tour with a show in Kansas City.

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Michael Jackson Patents The Smooth Criminal Shoes

1993

Michael Jackson is awarded a patent for the system that allows him to lean in unnatural angles during performances of "Smooth Criminal." To recreate the video on stage, Jackson and his dancers wore special shoes that they could insert into pegs set up on stage for the famous lean.

To recreate the video on stage, Jackson and his dancers wear special shoes they can insert into pegs set up on stage for the famous lean. To get the patent, Jackson's lawyers have to prove that their system improves on previous methods of stage leaning, which is typically accomplished with a cumbersome system of cables and harnesses. Doing it all in the feet is a novel approach. Jackson's patent claims to overcome the deficiencies of the cable system by "providing specialized footwear and a moveable hitch or post to which the specialized footwear can be detachably engaged to allow the footwear wearer to lean forward on stage, with his or her center of gravity well beyond the front of the shoes, thereby creating the desired visual effect." Translation: Dancers can clip in, do the lean, clip out and keep dancing.

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