Tommy’s Coffee Break Calendar for April 5th

Classic band debuts and props for a pioneer who made it cool for others to be "rock stars"...

4/5/1978 (39 years ago today) - Could not have predicted super-stardom and millions of sales in the future, but ya gotta start somewhere...: Duran Duran made their live debut at The Lecture Theatre, Birmingham Polytechnic in England. They were well dressed even then...

4/5/1980 (37 years ago today) - They became hugely influential, then they just...faded...away...: R.E.M. played their first ever gig at St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Athens, Georgia. "Indy rock" owes them big time -- literally hundreds of bands wouldn't have ever existed were it not for these four guys 'n that's a fact...This is their first ever TV appearance, "Late Night With David Letterman":

4/5/2012 (5 years ago today) - He helped make rock become...kinda scary in a way...: Jim Marshall, responsible for making rock 'n' roll more raw and (generally) more noisier (that don't sound right, but we're keeping it) by inventing the beloved Marshall amplifier, passed away on this date at a London hospice, age 88. Jim became known as "The Father Of Loud", and with good reason: those legendary 'Marshall stacks' set a new standard for live performance with just about every prominent rock guitarist in the '60's and '70's using his amps -- Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Pete Townshend -- and by the next generation of players as well -- Eddie Van Halen, Slash, Kurt Cobain, Lemmy -- Really hard to imagine rock as we know it without those beautiful stacks of Marshall amplifiers...

Share your history of hearing loss with the Calendar here on our web site and on the WBLM Facebook and Twitter pages with the hashtag #TommysCoffeeBreak.

"Put that up your wall/That this isn't nothing but cattle call...", xoxo!