Tommy’s Coffee Break Calendar for April 30th

Today you got the recording of one of the greatest singles in the history of the universe(!), plus a lesson in true rock star behavior and a birthday for a punk rock pioneer...

4/30/1957 (61 years ago today) - Ready? Roll tape...: Elvis Presley records the Leiber & Stoller song "Jailhouse Rock", which will also be the title of his third motion picture -- The track goes on to top the U.S. singles chart {of course!}, becoming not only the biggest selling single of 1957 and radio's most played song of the year, but it also ends up as the first song to ever debut at Number One in Great Britain! Just to give you an idea of how monstrous this little 45-single was, even the B-side, "Treat Me Nice", would hit No. 1 in the U.S. for an additional seven weeks in a row later in the fall! Amazing record, really...

4/30/1976 (42 years ago today) - How to Act Like a 'Rock Star', Lesson #5: Keith Moon of The Who pays nine cab drivers to block off the ends of a New York city street so he could throw the contents of his hotel room out the window! True story and one of many, many, many reasons he was nicknamed "Moon The Loon"...

4/30/1948 - Happy Birthday to MC5 lead guitarist Brother Wayne Kramer, 70 years old today -- The racket these guys made in 1969 was practically beyond belief...or categorization! It's true, though: punk rock would never have happened at all were it not for the likes of The Stooges and MC5 -- Go back and listen to Kramer just absolutely freakin' shreddin' the life out of it, whatever it was.Totally wicked! Met him once back when I was a DJ at a club in Lowell, Mass., and he was a real sweetheart of a guy, which was nice, actually...

Share your bumpin' with the Calendar here on our web site and on the WBLM Facebook and Twitter pages with the hashtag #TommysCoffeeBreak.

"What a feeling/In the sound that abounds...", xoxo!