Tommy’s Coffee Break Calendar for January 24th

John & Yoko, porn artists! -- Coolest way to advertise an album that we've ever heard of... -- He may not be yer cup of tea, but we gotta say "Happy Birthday!" to...

1/24/1969 (51 years ago today) - New Jersey state prosecutors issued a warning to record dealers that they would be charged with "distributing pornography" if they were caught selling the album "Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins" by John Lennon and Yoko Ono -- The front cover was a stark black and white photo of the pair facing the camera, arms around each other, 100% in the nude! And yes, the back cover showed them naked from behind {there's a joke here if you think about it}. It wasn't much of a musical statement: two sides clocking in at just over 29 minutes with most of it dedicated to the result of one all night long session of avant-garde experimentation and indecipherable "dialogue", although the inclusion of "Together" by Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadian Orchestra was a nice touch. Still, it became quite the collector's item in England where only 5,000 copies (thankfully?!?!) were ever pressed. Pretty abhorrent stuff all around...

1/24/1980 (40 years ago today) - Must say, it got the job done: A billboard was erected on Sunset Strip, West Hollywood, California, to promote Pink Floyd's new release "The Wall" -- A blank wall was pasted up and each day a brick was 'removed' to slowly reveal the inside spread and title of the album. Effectively nifty!

1/24/1941 - Born this day, Happy 79th Birthday to pseudo-iconic singer-songwriter Neil Diamond -- While we've grown more-than-weary with the whole "Cracklin' Rosie" shtick, we remind you that it was Neil who wrote "I'm A Believer" (which went to No. 1 for The Monkees in 1967) and "Kentucky Woman" (Deep Purple's psychedelized version remains a monstrous sounding epic) -- With his 2008 release "Home Before Dark", Neil became the oldest artist to have a U.S. No. 1 album, a record that was previously held by none other than Bob Dylan in 2006 with "Modern Times". Okay, we seriously like "Cherry Cherry" though...

Share your "No, really"'s with the Calendar here on our web site and on the WBLM Facebook and Twitter pages with the hashtag #TommysCoffeeBreak.

"We got things we gotta catch up on...", xoxo!