31 OCTOBER
In Music History
1999 In Biloxi, Mississippi, on the last stop of The Family Values Tour, Aaron Lewis of Staind captivates the crowd with the debut performance of "Outside," leading the way for their breakout album, Break The Cycle.More
1998 D'Angelo releases "Devil's Pie," the lead single from his second album, Voodoo.
1998 Kiss launch their Psycho Circus tour with a Halloween show in Los Angeles. The aptly named Smashing Pumpkins are the opening act.
1997 The Cure embrace the burgeoning internet by cybercasting their Halloween concert at Irving Plaza in New York City. The show, which is promoting their greatest hits set Galore, is also broadcast by more traditional means on over 60 radio stations.
1997 Jane's Addiction reunites for a Halloween show at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York.
1995 James Brown is charged with assault at his home in Aiken, South Carolina, after allegedly striking his wife Adrienne with a mirror.
1993 Atlantic Records signs Hootie & the Blowfish, which have already released two independent EPs and grown a following in South Carolina. It's a good signing: the band's debut, Cracked Rear View, becomes the best-selling album in the label's history.
1992 Joan Jett stars in an episode of the TV series Highlander, playing one of the immortals. Her version of "Cherry Bomb" is featured.
1991 Joseph Papp, producer of the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical A Chorus Line, dies of cancer at age 70.
1988 Soundgarden issue their full-length debut album, Ultramega OK, on SST Records.
1988 Bon Jovi launch their New Jersey Syndicate tour with a show in Dublin. The tour lasts 16 months and over 200 concerts. On the North American legs, they're joined by a New-er Jersey band: Skid Row.
1986 Roger Waters sues David Gilmour and Nick Mason to keep them from touring and recording as Pink Floyd. They do so anyway, and later come to an agreement with Waters that allows them to use the name.
1976 Elvis Presley makes his last recording, singing Jim Reeves' "He'll Have To Go" over a pre-recorded backing track in the Jungle Room of his Graceland home.
1975 Southern rockers The Marshall Tucker Band headline a fundraising concert for presidential nominee Jimmy Carter.
1970 Linn Berggren (of Ace of Base) is born in Gothenburg, Sweden.
"Monster Mash" Rules Halloween
1962The "Monster Mash" rules the airwaves, becoming the most popular Halloween song of all time.
Read more31 OCTOBER
Featured Events
2011 The album Lulu, a baffling collaboration between Metallica and Lou Reed, is released. The first single, "The View," reaches peak lunacy when James Hetfield screams, "I am the table!"
2010 Demi Lovato deletes her Twitter account and enters rehab after suffering a nervous breakdown on the Jonas Brothers tour. Stress from the tour and other commitments, including promoting her movie Camp Rock 2, led to an eating disorder and a dependency on drugs and alcohol - she had also broken up with her tourmate Joe Jonas, who had taken up a new girlfriend, Ashley Greene. Lovato leaves the facility in January 2011.
2008 In Notttingham, England, 1,227 people in zombie garb perform the dance from Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video, setting a new Guinness World Record for largest gathering of zombies. The stunt pushes the song back into the UK chart, where it lands at #35.
1993 Tupac Shakur shoots two white off-duty police officers in Atlanta, who are treated and released from the hospital. Accounts of the incident are sketchy, but it appears that at least one of the cops instigated the incident and was possibly inebriated. Charges against Tupac are later dropped.
1992 "End Of The Road" by Boyz II Men is the #1 song on the Hot 100 for the 12th consecutive week, breaking the record held by Elvis Presley's two-sided "Don't be Cruel/Hound Dog," which was #1 for 11 weeks in 1956. The group is displaced three months later by Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You"; in 1995, Boyz II Men ties Houston's 14-week record with "I'll Make Love To You."
1991 After meeting up at their ex-manager's funeral, Spinal Tap announce a reunion. "It was destiny and also because none of us were really making a great amount of money," bass player Derek Smalls says.
1964 Unseating The Beatles' 14-week run at the top of the US albums chart with A Hard Day's Night, Barbra Streisand hits #1 with People, which stays at the top for five weeks.
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