Tommy’s Coffee Break Calendar for Rocktober 29th

A mysterious one-hit wonder! A new chart record holder! The guitarist who replaced Eric Clapton...

10/29/1966 (49 years ago today) - Question Mark & The Mysterians hit No. 1 on the U.S. singles chart with a definitive one-hit wonder if ever there was one, the cheesily fantastic "96 Tears".  ? Mark's real name was Rudy Martinez from the Flint, Michigan area, and he originally wrote the song in 1962 with the title "Too Many Teardrops". It has since become a garage-band classic; with it's signature wheezy organ licks and bare bones lyrics, it's also regarded as one of the tracks that helped to jump start the punk movement. Billboard ranked the song at Number 5 for the year -- at just over 2-and-a-half minutes it turned out to be pretty influential for a band that was essentially never heard from again.

10/29/1983 (25 years ago today) - Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side Of The Moon" marks its 491st week(!!!) on the Billboard Album Chart, surpassing the previous record holder, and we're not kidding, "Johnny's Greatest Hits" by Johnny Mathis. "Dark Side" remained on the charts for another five years -- it didn't fall off the list until October 1988 by which time it had set the all-time record: 741 weeks on the chart! Take a break, boys...

10/29/1946 - Happy Birthday to legendary British guitar-master Peter Green, 69 years old today. Peter Alan Greenbaum was a major figure in the early '60's British blues movement, so much so that B.B. King was quoted as saying that "[Peter Green] had the sweetest tone I ever heard, he's the only one that gives me cold sweats". John Mayall thought so too -- he picked Peter to replace Eric Clapton in his Bluebreakers line-up when Eric flew the coop. It was only a couple of months later that Peter wanted to expand his visions -- he went on to form Fleetwood Mac (with Mick Fleetwood on drums and John McVie, another ex-Bluesbreaker, on bass).Those early Mac records are timeless, perfect, magical even; do your ears (and soul) a favor and check 'em out a.s.a.p.

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"And when the sun comes up/I'll be on top/You'll be way down there/Lookin' up...", xoxo!