Chapter 01 — Today in music
On a day like today August 23
1946
Keith Moon is born, the hurricane who drummed like the world was ending
On August 23, 1946, Keith Moon was born in London — The Who's drummer, who abolished the idea of accompaniment: his drumming was a permanent solo, a melodic gale without hi-hat or rules. Offstage, his demolished hotel rooms founded the manual of rock excess. He died at 32, almost inevitably, leaving a style nobody has managed to copy.
Keith Moon
The Who
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1962
John Lennon's secret wedding on the eve of Beatlemania
On 23 August 1962, John Lennon married Cynthia Powell at Liverpool's Mount Pleasant register office, with Brian Epstein as best man and Paul McCartney and George Harrison as witnesses. Cynthia was pregnant with Julian, and Epstein imposed secrecy fearing fans would desert a married Beatle. The ceremony was near farce: a pneumatic drill across the street drowned out the registrar's words. There was no honeymoon — that same night Lennon played with the Beatles in Chester, weeks before recording 'Love Me Do'.
John Lennon
Cynthia Lennon
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1970
Lou Reed quits the Velvet Underground after one last night at Max's
On August 23, 1970, Lou Reed played his final concert with the Velvet Underground at Max's Kansas City and quit, exhausted, to go work at his father's office. The band that sold almost nothing but founded the whole of alternative rock was losing its greatest pen. Two years later, with Bowie's help, Reed would begin his second life as a solo legend.
Lou Reed
The Velvet Underground
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1986
'Raising Hell' tops the chart and rap finally gets into white houses
On August 23, 1986, Run-DMC's 'Raising Hell' topped the R&B albums chart. Produced by Rick Rubin, it carried a version of 'Walk This Way' cut with Aerosmith themselves, a then-forgotten band whose career it revived. It was the first rap album to sell millions and to play on rock radio. Two genres that had ignored each other discovered they shared the same drum beat.
Run-DMC
Aerosmith
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1994
'Grace': the album that failed in his lifetime and became sacred afterwards
On August 23, 1994, 'Grace' was released in the United States, the only album Jeff Buckley managed to finish. It barely reached number 149, got almost no radio play and disappointed his label. After Buckley drowned in the Wolf River in 1997, everything changed: Jimmy Page called it his favourite album of the decade and David Bowie the best album ever made. His 'Hallelujah' rescued a song not even Leonard Cohen was defending.
Jeff Buckley
Leonard Cohen
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1949
Rick Springfield is born, the heartthrob who envied Jessie
On 23 August 1949, Richard Lewis Springthorpe, known as Rick Springfield, was born in Australia. After cutting his teeth in Australian bands he moved to the United States, juggling acting on the soap 'General Hospital' with a bright-guitared rock career. In 1981 'Jessie's Girl' hit number one on the Billboard chart and won him a Grammy, sealing one of pop rock's most perfect anthems of coveting. His double life between screen and stage made him a defining idol of the early eighties.
Rick Springfield
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1961
Dean DeLeo is born, Stone Temple Pilots' elegant guitarist
On 23 August 1961, Dean DeLeo, guitarist of Stone Temple Pilots and older brother of bassist Robert DeLeo, was born in Montclair, New Jersey. As grunge ruled the airwaves, his playing brought a harmonic sophistication rare in the scene, between massive riffs and almost jazz-like voicings. The debut 'Core' sold over eight million copies and cemented the band among the giants of the nineties. His style proved the alternative rock era also had room for classic-school elegance.
Dean DeLeo
Stone Temple Pilots
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1975
'Cut the Cake' tops the R&B chart and six Scots baffle everybody
On August 23, 1975, the Average White Band's 'Cut the Cake' topped the US R&B albums chart. They were six musicians from Scotland who played funk better than almost any American band — so much so that many Black radio listeners assumed they were Black until they saw the sleeve. The album was dedicated to their drummer, Robbie McIntosh, who had died of an overdose months earlier at a party in Los Angeles.
Average White Band
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1978
Julian Casablancas is born: the New Yorker who revived guitar rock
On August 23, 1978, Julian Casablancas was born in New York, son of a modelling agency founder and a pupil at Swiss boarding schools — that is, the exact opposite of the poor-rocker myth. With The Strokes and 'Is This It' in 2001 he put guitars back at the centre just when rock seemed finished. The band sounded deliberately cheap and unbothered, and that pose of indifference defined the whole decade.
Julian Casablancas
The Strokes
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1989
Lianne La Havas is born: the guitarist Prince picked before anyone else
On August 23, 1989, Lianne La Havas was born in London, to a Jamaican mother and a Greek father. She started as a backing singer and ended up recording at her own house with Prince, who declared himself a fan and came looking for her. Her guitar playing — open, odd, almost jazz chords — and her soul voice gave her a place of her own in a British scene saturated with imitations. She chose three albums in thirteen years over overexposure.
Lianne La Havas
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