1979: The Wall was one of Pink Floyd’s best selling albums. ibid.
Public Enemy: It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. ibid.
Mister, kids don’t walk no more, they roll. Violent Playground 1958 starring Stanley Baker & Peter Cushing & Anne Haywood & David McCallum & John Slater & Clifford Evans & Moultrie Kelsall & George A Cooper & Michael Chow & Freddie Starr & Sheila Raynor et al, director Basil Dearden, kid to rozzer
It’s just a bit on the side. Freddie Mercury: The Great Pretender Freddie, Sky Arts 2018
Everything about Freddie’s performance was epic. ibid. video dude
I saw him as a very subversive influence in the worst possible sense. ibid. Roger Taylor
I do what I want, to be honest. ibid. Freddie
At 16, Bob Weir co-founded The Grateful Dead with his pal Jerry Garcia. The Grateful Dead became the most enduring American rock band in history. The Other One: The Long Strange Trip of Bob Weir, Netflix 2015
I’ve lead a kind of unusual life … Mine has been a long strange trip. ibid. Bob Weir
Oasis did define an era. Liam vs Noel: Brothers at War, Channel 5 2019, bloke
It’s almost Shakespearean the two of them together. ibid. bloke #2
August 2009: Noel Gallagher quits Oasis at a gig in Paris, citing irreconcilable differences with his brother Liam. ibid. caption
I would not behave. ibid. Liam
They would have these massive sparks then it would be business as usual. ibid. friend
August 1996: Oasis play two nights at Knebworth House to over 250,000 people. 2.6 million people applied for tickets. ibid. caption
August 1999: original members Paul ‘Guigsy’ McGuigan and Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs leave Oasis. ibid.
August 2009: Noel quits Oasis. ibid.
He’s the biggest liar and the biggest faker in the business. ibid. Liam
August ’69 – hundreds of thousands of us descend on Bethel, near Woodstock, north of New York City. Thirty-two bands, three days of peace, love and music. Our words. Our footage. Our story. The Festival that Rocked the World, captions, Sky Arts 2019
It was adventurous. It was dangerous. It was fun. It was eye-opening … There was so much weed, man.’ ibid. dude
This is what a pilgrimage must be like.’ ibid.
Interviewer: We’ve got a guy with a lamb. Did you come here for a reason?
Dude: Yeah … Well, this is a revolution … A revolution of a lot of people who refuse to have anything to do with killing. And here there is vegetarian food. ibid. dude with lamb
This was hundreds of thousands of young people on a hillside and without the grown-ups in control. ibid. dude with lamb
I’ve never seen so many hippy-types in one place. ibid. woman
By the end of that first day the rain started. ibid.
On Saturday there was no food left. ibid.
Doctors in the audience ended up donating their time. ibid.
Orange Barrels called Sunshine was one of the most popular forms of LSD. ibid.
2.05 p.m. 16 August 1977: The lifeless body of Elvis Presley lying on the floor. At just 42 the King of Rock n Roll was dead. Elvis: The Final Hours, Sky Arts 2019
Memphis Tennessee: the home of the legendary Elvis Presley. Here, Elvis’s closest friends and confidants, known as the Memphis Mafia, reveal the heartbreaking story of the King’s final moments on Earth. ibid.
Elvis took the world by storm. ibid.
Elvis did everything to excess. ibid.
Elvis’s only income came from his tours … He was on the very edge of financial collapse … 50% of the income went to Tom Parker. ibid.
The drugs and ensuing health problems had changed Elvis mentally and physically. ibid.
‘His mood swings were more frequent.’ ibid. confidant
‘A slowly slide.’ ibid.
I had ambitions to er set out and find like an odyssey, going home somewhere and set up to find this home that I’d left awhile back … Bob Dylan, No Direction Home I, 2005
We didn’t have the clothes that we have now … There really wasn’t any philosophy or … ideology to go against. ibid.
He’s changed from what he was. He’s not the same as he was at first. ibid. British fan post-concert
Woody Guthie: he had a particular sound. And he said something to go along with his sound. That was highly unusual to my ears. ibid. Dylan
Fantastic. Very good. ibid. British fan post-concert
Hey, her, Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song, about a funny old world that’s moving along.’ ibid. song lyric
It was very much the spirit of the time. ibid. fan
The land that I live in has God on its side … Oh the country was young with God on its side. ibid. song lyric
The process was new to me. I felt like I’d discovered something no-one else had ever discovered, and I was in a certain arena artistically that no-one else had ever been in before. Ever. Although, I might have been wrong about that. ibid. Dylan
Fan: What happened to Woody Guthrie, Bob? ibid.
Bob: These are all protest songs. Now come on. Bob Dylan, No Direction Home II
All my sons are protest songs. ibid.
No-one had heard anything like this before. ibid. fan
Rome 4th March 1994: One of the world’s greatest rock-stars has tried to kill himself: Kurt Cobain. His wife, Courtney Love, gives the paparazzi the finger as she rushes to the hospital. News agencies prematurely announce his death. Too Young to Die s1e2: Curt Cobain, Sky 2012
The hero of a whole generation: the instigator of Grunge. ibid.
MTV Unplugged, recorded in 1993, was an artistic high point for Nirvana. ibid.
Aberdeen in the mid-80s: the town was in decline. Kurt Cobain was 17, had dropped out of various schools, and was picked up from time to time by the police for graffiti spraying. He was living from hand to mouth and was surviving on casual jobs. ibid.
‘Another myth is that people think Nirvana were an overnight success.’ ibid. biographer
The music press in Britain called Nirvana ‘the leading band of a movement that had been given the name Grunge.’ ibid.
Smells Like Teen Spirit became the anthem of a whole generation. ibid.
‘We were called to the Casualty. We were confronted by someone who had been brought in by ambulance. He was not breathing. We pumped his chest to try to do cardiac massage resuscitation but there was no response at all. We tried to turn him over but he was very stiff. And I think the rigor mortis had already settled in. I couldn’t believe the amount of fluid that was in his lungs and in his pharynx. Couldn’t believe it.’ Hendrix & the Spook, Dr John Banister, St Mary Abbot’s Hospital 1970, BBC 2020
At 12:45 p.m. on September 18th 1970 Jimi Hendrix was pronounced dead. The guitar legend was only 27. The post mortem shows he died by choking on his own vomit while under the effect of sleeping pills. But a troubling question remains: with so much win in his body, why was there hardly in his blood. The Inquest declares his death suspicious, but who would want to harm Jimi Hendrix? ibid.
He is drained and depressed, and suffering from a chronic lack of sleep. He is using barbiturates to rest and amphetamines to remover. Jimi needs to rest and recover but he doesn’t like being alone. So he takes comfort in the company of fans. ibid.
17 September 1970: ‘I thought he looked awful. His hair seemed to be a mess and broken off. Tired and not himself.’ ibid. Kathy Etchingham, Jimi’s ex-girlfriend
As he would later do with Jimi Hendrix, [Michael] Jeffery exposed The Animals for all they were worth … Jeffery was ripping them off … Jeffery and Chandler … take him [Hendrix] to London to launch his career … Jeffery signs Jimi to an exclusive four-year management deal that gives him 40% of Jimi’s gross performance earnings. ibid.
The quantity of sleeping pills suggests a worrying possibility: did Jimi take his own life? ibid.
In 1968 Jimi spends a quarter of a million dollars on recording studios … but the project goes way over budget. ibid.