Look At Today’s 1968 Festival Line-Up, Plus: In Court With Ozzy!

Today it's a rockin' '50's riot, a notable '60's festival we wish we had been at, and a sad news item that tried {again!} to put the blame on rock 'n' roll -- Here's your Monday Rocktober 26th Coffee Break Calendar...

10/26/1958 (62 years ago today) - Bill Haley and His Comets are the first ever American rock 'n' roll band to play in Germany, and on their second gig this night at  the Berlin Sportpalast, things spiraled out-of-control pretty quickly: five policeman are seriously beaten(!), six members of the audience had to be hospitalized(!) and hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage are made to the venue when the crowd of 7,000 goes bonkers for some real American rockin'. Bizarrely comforting in its own pseudo-infantile-classic-rock way...

10/26/1968 (52 years ago today) - In stark contrast to the aforementioned Bill Haley story...: According to the calendar, "The Summer Of Love" may be over, but peace-&-happiness-&-etc. is certainly in the air with the two day San Francisco Pop Festival at the Alameada County Fairgrounds. On the bill, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Deep Purple, Procol Harum, The Animals, Buddy Miles, Iron Butterfly, Johnny Rivers, The Chambers Brothers, Canned Heat and Jose Feliciano. That's a definitive/textbook Sixties line-up if there ever was one...

10/26/1984 (36 years ago today) - 19 year old John McCollum killed himself with a .22 caliber handgun after spending the day listening to nothing but Ozzy Osbourne records -- A year later, McCollum's parents made an attempt to sue Oz and his record label, claiming that if their son hadn't been exposed to tracks like "Suicide Solution", he would likely still be alive. The case was eventually thrown out of court.

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

"Don't you know what it's really about?...", xoxo!