Chapter 01 — Today in music
On a day like today October 18
1926
Chuck Berry is born, the man who wrote rock and roll's grammar
Chuck Berry is born in St. Louis: the poet and guitarist who defined rock's entire vocabulary — the riffs, the duck walk, and lyrics that invented adolescence as a subject. “Johnny B. Goode” now travels through space on the Voyager golden record. As John Lennon said: if you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry.
Chuck Berry
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1957
The night Paul McCartney fluffed his solo and went looking for a guitarist
McCartney's first appearance with John Lennon's Quarrymen, at New Clubmoor Hall in Liverpool. He was fifteen, he had been handed the solo on "Guitar Boogie", and nerves ate him alive. From that humiliation came a practical conclusion: he was no lead guitarist. Months later he brought into the group a kid from his bus called George Harrison.
Paul McCartney
The Quarrymen
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1963
Chuck Berry walks out of prison on his thirty-seventh birthday
Twenty months of a Mann Act sentence end at the federal facility in Springfield, on his birthday. While he was inside, half of England learned his songs: the Beatles and the Rolling Stones played them nightly in tiny clubs. He came back to a world where his repertoire had become a common language, and within months wrote "Nadine" and "You Never Can Tell".
Chuck Berry
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1964
The Beatles knock out four songs in a day to keep the album on schedule
They drive back from Hull to London to record between two shows: in five takes they finish "I Feel Fine" and three cover versions that would end up padding out Beatles for Sale. Lennon had just admitted that writing new material had become a serious problem. Their most exhausted album was made this way, stealing hours from a tour that never stopped.
The Beatles
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1968
"All Along the Watchtower" reaches Britain and Dylan hands the song over for good
Track Records issues the single in Britain, where it reached number five and became the first stereo-only single to do so. Hendrix took Dylan's song apart and rebuilt it with layers of guitar that were nowhere in the original. The author accepted it without a fight: from then on he always played it the other man's way.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Bob Dylan
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1968
A sergeant with a taste for trophies arrests John Lennon and Yoko Ono
Police search the Montagu Square flat and find cannabis resin. In charge is Sergeant Norman Pilcher, a specialist in raids on pop stars. Lennon pleaded guilty to keep Yoko from being deported and paid a hundred and fifty pounds; the charges against her were dropped. That conviction would complicate his entry into the United States for years afterwards.
John Lennon
Yoko Ono
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1969
Diana Ross introduces five brothers from Indiana and the one in front is eleven
Their national television debut: the Jackson 5 appear on The Hollywood Palace with Diana Ross hosting, a week after "I Want You Back" was released. Motown had spent months spreading the story that she had discovered them, which was untrue, and the show existed to seal the legend. Michael took the screen and nobody argued with the story again.
The Jackson 5
Michael Jackson
Diana Ross
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1969
Álvaro Henríquez is born, who pulled Roberto Parra's cuecas choras out of oblivion
He was born on 18 October 1969 in Concepción, entered the city conservatory at twelve and by 1982 had a rockabilly group with Lindl and Molina: three boys from Concepción who moved to Santiago and called themselves Los Tres. His obsession was not rock but Roberto Parra, Violeta's brother: he recorded Parra's cuecas choras and in 1996 opened a venue, La Yein Fonda, to play them.
Álvaro Henríquez
Los Tres
Roberto Parra
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1974
The Stones release their last album with Mick Taylor without knowing it
The first album produced by Jagger and Richards under their Glimmer Twins alias, and the silent farewell of the guitarist who had sharpened the band since 1969. Taylor left months later, tired of contributing writing ideas that never appeared in the credits. The title track came out of a jam at the house of Ronnie Wood, his replacement.
The Rolling Stones
Mick Taylor
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1984
Esperanza Spalding is born: the bassist who beat Justin Bieber to a Grammy
On October 18, 1984, Esperanza Spalding was born in Portland, raised by a single mother in a poor neighbourhood. At twenty she was already teaching at the Berklee school, the youngest in its history. In 2011 she won the Grammy for best new artist, the first ever for a jazz musician, ahead of Justin Bieber; the Canadian's fans vandalised her Wikipedia page that same night.
Esperanza Spalding
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2000
Zack de la Rocha quits Rage Against the Machine over a question of method
His statement is not about music but about procedure: it says the band's decision-making process had failed and that this undermined their artistic and political ideal. A group that preached horizontal politics broke apart for not practising them internally. The other three carried on with Chris Cornell out front and called themselves Audioslave.
Rage Against the Machine
Zack de la Rocha
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2025
Sam Rivers dies, the bass where Limp Bizkit's songs actually lived
He founded Limp Bizkit in Jacksonville in 1994 and called his cousin in to play drums. In a band almost nobody credited with craft, he was the part holding it up: the riffs you remember were his, played on bass. Liver disease sidelined him in 2015 and he returned in 2018. His last show was at Leeds, in August. He died on 18 October 2025, aged 48, with no cause disclosed.
Sam Rivers
Limp Bizkit
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1946
Howard Shore is born, who led the Saturday Night Live band before winning three Oscars
On October 18, 1946, Howard Shore was born in Toronto. He was Saturday Night Live's first musical director, from 1975 to 1980; the idea of calling Belushi and Aykroyd's duo the Blues Brothers was his. He then turned to film: he composed for David Cronenberg for decades and in the 2000s wrote the scores for the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, which won him three Academy Awards.
Howard Shore
Saturday Night Live
1956
Elvis brawls with a gas station owner and ends up in court
He stops at a Memphis service station to check the exhaust on his white Continental and a crowd forms around him asking for autographs. The manager, Edd Hopper, demands he clear the forecourt; the argument turns physical. All three men were arrested, but the judge fined only the station staff. At twenty-one, Presley was already untouchable in his own city.
Elvis Presley
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1966
Hendrix opens for Johnny Hallyday at the Olympia and somebody rolls tape
The Jimi Hendrix Experience had existed for five days when they walked onto the Olympia stage in Paris supporting the French idol. That night was taped, and it survives as the earliest known recording of the trio. Four months later "Hey Joe" entered the British charts and the support act became a problem for anyone booked to follow him.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Johnny Hallyday
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1968
Deep Purple make their US debut opening for Cream's farewell tour
The first American date by the original line-up, and not in a club: the Forum in Inglewood, sixteen thousand people, opening for Cream on their farewell tour. Tetragrammaton taped the night on a primitive video recorder and the recording finally came out thirty-four years later. Almost nobody on that stage was still in the band two years on.
Deep Purple
Cream
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1975
Simon and Garfunkel make up on air in the second ever episode of SNL
Paul Simon hosts and performs on episode two of a brand-new late-night show that was not yet an institution. Lorne Michaels cut most of the sketches to fit in eleven musical performances, a record that still stands. Midway through, Art Garfunkel appeared out of the audience: five years apart, and they sang as if nothing had happened.
Simon & Garfunkel
Paul Simon
Art Garfunkel
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1984
"Run to You" was turned down by two bands before it made Bryan Adams
Adams and Jim Vallance wrote it for Blue Öyster Cult, who passed, and then for .38 Special, who passed too. Adams himself had written it off because of a disastrous demo vocal, until he played it with the full band and understood what he was holding. It spent four weeks at the top of the American rock chart.
Bryan Adams
Jim Vallance
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1985
The Cult swap goth for riffs and land a British number four
The third incarnation of Ian Astbury's band: from the tribal post-punk of Southern Death Cult only the voice and the iconography survive, while Billy Duffy plays like a man from another decade. With "She Sells Sanctuary" leading the way, Love spent twenty-two weeks on the UK chart and opened the road to the outright hard rock that followed.
The Cult
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1988
The Bangles release the album that took them to number one and to the exit
The Los Angeles band's third album, led by "In Your Room" and carrying a ballad nobody in the group thought was a priority: "Eternal Flame" went to number one around the world three months later. That success finished off an already unbalanced share of the spotlight and they split in 1989. It took nine years for them to record together again.
The Bangles
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1993
Iron Maiden split their set across two live albums and this one keeps the old songs
A Real Dead One collects only pre-Powerslave material, taped on the 1992 and 1993 tours; its twin, A Real Live One, had taken everything that came after. The operation closed the first Bruce Dickinson era, the singer having already left the band. Five years later the two records were bundled into a single package.
Iron Maiden
Bruce Dickinson
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1994
Ash introduce themselves with a mini-album made while still teenagers
Trailer is not an album and not a single: it is exactly what the title announces, a preview of what the Downpatrick trio was about to do. Recorded on a minimal budget and played with the urgency of people still sitting exams, it worked as a calling card for the proper debut that arrived a year and a half later.
Ash
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1999
Jimmy Page plays the Led Zeppelin catalogue with the Black Crowes in Los Angeles
Two nights at the Greek Theatre, this being the first, with Page revisiting his old catalogue backed by a Georgia band that had grown up listening to it. Live at the Greek came out of those shows, released in 2000 with a curious problem: the Crowes' recording contract barred their own songs from the album.
Jimmy Page
The Black Crowes
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2004
The Soundtrack of Our Lives launch their most excessive album in Europe
The Swedes release Origin Vol. 1 half a year before it reaches the United States, with undiminished faith in a rock of Hammond organs, thick guitars and stadium choruses, at exactly the moment nobody was asking for any of it. The volume two promised by the title was never released under that name.
The Soundtrack of Our Lives
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2011
Chris Isaak moves into Sun Studio to sing what was recorded there first
Covers of Elvis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis, taped in the same Memphis room where the originals were made. Isaak has spent half his career fighting the comparison, so instead of dodging it he moved inside it. The title explains the idea: everyone took off from there towards somewhere else.
Chris Isaak
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2011
Jane's Addiction hire a producer as their bassist and half a record comes out
Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio ended up playing bass on almost every track after joining only as an additional producer. Chris Chaney covered the rest and even Dave Navarro filled a gap or two. The credits mess describes the band's moment well: plenty of loose names, not much of a group, and a decent album nobody remembers.
Jane's Addiction
Dave Sitek
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2019
Mark Lanegan trades the guitar for synthesisers and looks towards Manchester
His eleventh album under that name, released by Heavenly: eighties synthesisers, echoes of Mancunian post-punk and that smoker's voice, equally broken in any setting. Critics called it his most cheerful record, which in his case still meant something fairly close to Joy Division at their gloomiest.
Mark Lanegan
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