Showing posts with label Rock Music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rock Music. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Wednesday, July 9, 1975. The start of the Angolan Civil War.

Angolan liberation movements broke out in civil war, with the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), attacking the National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA), led by Holden Roberto.   The country had not yet officially received independence. 

Dutch photographer and artist Bas Jan Ader left Cape Cod in an attempt to make an unassisted voyage from west to east of the North Atlantic Ocean.  He would disappear and never be heard from again.

Rock musician John Anthony Gillis, better known as Jack White, was born.

Last edition:

Thursday, July 3, 1975. The U.S. Civil Service Commission ended restrictions on hiring homosexuals.

Tuesday, July 1, 2025

Sunday, July 1, 1945. Battle of Balikpapan. The Post War German Map. Blondie.

Today in World War II History—July 1, 1940 & 1945: 85 Years Ago—July 1, 1940: Germans occupy Jersey and Guernsey in the British Channel Islands. 80 Years Ago—July 1, 1945: Australians land at Balikpapan, Borneo.

US occupation forces arrive in Berlin.

Col. Benjamin O. Davis Jr. (former commander of the Tuskegee Airmen) assumes command of Godman Field, KY, the first Black officer to command a major US air base.

US resumes production of cars, with the first rolling off the assembly line on August 30.

From Sarah Sundin's blog. 

The Australian and Dutch (mostly Australian) landing at Balikpapan was a major one, which had been preceded by an Allied naval bombardment that lasted for days.

US landing craft landing Australian infantry, July 1, 1945.

The Inner German Border was established and the British withdrew from Magdeburg which was part of the Soviet zone.

German Gen. Willibald Borowietz, 51, committed suicide at the Camp Clinton, Mississippi POW camp.  He had been a POW since 1943, having surrendered with the Afrika Korps.  His wife, Eva Ledien, was of Jewish decent and had killed herself in 1938 so that their children could be Aryanized. Her sister, Käthe (Ledien) Bosse, was killed in Ravensbrück concentration camp in 1944.

Debbie Harry (Angela Trimble), lead singer of Blondie, was born in Miami, Florida.  She was given up for adoption by her parents and adopted by parents of the lsat name of Harry, who renamed her.  Her birth mother, whom she later located, was a pianist, but who chose not to reunite with her.

When I was in high school I was a big fan of Blondie.  I have all of their lps.

Harry started off as a folk singer.  She became a New Wave trend setter with Blondie at age 33, late for a pop musician.  

Last edition:

Saturday, June 30, 1945. Mopping up.

Saturday, June 14, 2025

Fortunate Son

They actually played it at the reviewing stand today for the Army's 250th anniversary parade.

How ironic.

Friday, April 18, 2025

Friday, April 18, 1975. Executing the radicals.

Hang Thun Hak, 48 year old former radical Socialist Prime Minister of Cambodia was executed by the Khmer Rouge.  He'd been in the far left himself and had contacts with the Khmer Rouge, none of which saved him, with execution of left wing radicals actually being common amongst Communist.

The NVA took Phan Thiết.

Van McCoy released The Hustle.

ZZ Top released Fandango!

Last edition:

Thursday, April 17, 1975. The fall of Phnom Penh.

Monday, April 14, 2025

Babymetal?

 

Babymetal announce 24-date North American tour, with Jinjer and Bloodywood among supporting cast

According to Wikipedia; 

Babymetal (Japanese: ベビーメタル, Hepburn: Bebīmetaru) (stylized in all caps as BABYMETAL) is a Japanese kawaii metal band consisting of Suzuka Nakamoto as "Su-metal", Moa Kikuchi as "Moametal" and Momoko Okazaki as "Momometal". The band is produced by Kobametal from the Amuse talent agency. Their vocals are backed by heavy metal instrumentation, performed by a group of session musicians known as the "Kami Band" at performances.

What the crud?

Friday, September 27, 2024

Sunday, September 27, 1964. The Warren Report issued.

The government issued the Warren Report concluding that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone and that Kennedy had been inadequately protected during his November 22, 1963, visit to Dallas.

US troops rescued sixty Vietnamese hostages and seized the main camp of Montagnard rebels operating at Buon Sar Pa.

The Beach Boys appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Last edition:

Saturday, September 26, 1964. Gilligan's Island

Tuesday, September 24, 2024

Only problem was. . .


the photo for the campaign in Georgia was of the Central Asian country, not the U.S. state.

You know, the one that was once part of the Soviet Union.

Oh, the unintentional irony

Tuesday, July 30, 2024

Tuesday, July 30, 1974. Cypriot peace, Articles of impeachment.

Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom signed a peace agreement calling a halt to fighting in Cyprus.  The agreement was mediated by Henry Kissinger.

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee adjourned its proceedings for impeachment.  It had passed three articles of impeachment. 

A proposed fourth, asserting, illegal use of power in the 1970 invasion of Cambodia, was rejected.

An election was held in Rhodesia, which had a population of 300,000 whites and 5,700,000 blacks. Voting was segregated. The result was whites took 76% of the seats.

ZZ Top played at the Tulsa State Fairgrounds.

Last edition.

Monday, July 29, 1974. Philadelphia Eleven and Alpha Group.

Friday, February 9, 2024

Blog Mirror: Sunday, February 9, 1964: The Beatles On "The Ed Sullivan Show"

 From Uncle Mike's:

February 9, 1964: The Beatles On "The Ed Sullivan Show"



I wonder if my parents watched it?

My mother was more of a music fan than my father.  My father's record collection consisted a few albums he had bought after, I'm pretty sure, my parents bought a very large and heavy combination radio and stereo set.  It's a massively substantial piece of furniture.  The records he purchased were all of military marches.  Nothing else.

My mother had a pretty extensive set of 45 rpm records, or singles as they were called, which weren't really singles but which had one song each on each side.  I should commit more of them to digital.  They included a lot of Elvis Pressley, and some jazz, and some odds and ends.  She later bought some albums that were from the 60s, but they were people like Tom Jones.  

Musically, FWIW, I can recall The Lawrence Welk Show being a weekly staple in the house.  I can barely recall The Ed Sullivan Show playing from time to time, which must mean that my father watched it on rare occasion.  It ran until 1971.

The 1964 Winter Olympics closed in Innsbruck.

Tuesday, January 9, 2024

Sunday, January 9, 1944. Advances on all fronts.

Red Cross helping men at 5th Army rest center prepare packages for sending home. 9 January, 1944.

The Red Army took Polonne and Kamianets-Podilskyi.

Polonne had been within Poland until the Russo Polish War, when it went to the Soviets in 1920.  It had a major Jewish population before World War Two.  Kamianets-Podilskyi had also been part of the post World War One Polish state until 1920.

The U-81 was sunk at Pola Italy by American aircraft.

The US 2nd Corps attacked Cervaro and Monte Trochio in Italy.


The US constructed a second airfield on Bougainville.

Pvt. R. Dennis, 182nd Infantry, Americal Division, Bougainville, January 9, 1944.

Allied forces took Maungdaw in Burma.

Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin fame was born on this day in 1944.

Monday, December 18, 2023

Saturday, December 18, 1943. German terror expands.

T/5 Cletus H. Moert, Louisville, Ky., holds pigeon and while reading message taken from its leg. Pozzilli Sector, Italy. 18 December, 1943.

Heinrich Himmler revoked most exemptions for Jews married to Gentiles in Germany.  Jewish spouses, for the most part, ordered deported to Theresienstadt in January, with exceptions for couples that had very young children or who had lost a child in combat.

The SS murdered 118 men at Drakela, Greece, in a reprisal for partisan activities.

The US 5th Army captured Monte Lungo.  San Pietro is taken by the 36th Infantry Division.

Three officials of the Kharkov Gestapo were tried before a Soviet military Court, found guilty and sentenced to death.  All three, Hans Rietz, Wilhelm Langfeld, and Reinhard Retzlaff would be executed the following day.

The U.S. Army formed a Counter Intelligence Corps unit for the Manhattan Project.

The Japanese destroyer Numakaze was sunk by the US submarine Grayback.

Famous British rocker Keith Richards was born in Kent.

Cpl. Albert Allen of Chicago, Ill., and Cpl. Byron Davis of Lansing, Mich., (15th Weather Squadron), sit down to a meal of "J" rations, December 18, 1943 on New Britain.  Cpl. Davis appears to be wearing jump boots.

Tuesday, December 12, 2023

Sincerest form of flattery.

I've been imitated so well I've heard people copy my mistakes.

 Jimi Hendrix

Friday, December 8, 2023

Wednesday, December 8, 1943. Kalavryta

German General Karl von Le Suire, commander of the German  XXXXIX Mountain Corps, ordered the burning of the Greek city of Kalavryta and the execution of its male population in reprisal for the execution of 80 German prisoners of war by partisans.  They would ultimately kill 58 men and boys in Rogoi, and 37 in Kerpini.  At Mega Spilaio they murdered 22 monks and visitors.

Von Le Suire would surrender his command to the Soviets at the end of the war, and he would die in their captivity in 1954 at age 55.

The Battle of San Pietro Infine commenced with Italians fighting alongside the Allies.

On the same day Free French troops, some of whom were North African, began to be introduced to the fighting in Italy while veterans American and British units started to be withdrawn in order to be used in Overlord.

President Roosevelt visited Malta.


The Australians prevailed in the Battle of Wareo.


The U.S. Navy bombed Kwajalein 

Legendary rock music artist Jim Morrison was born in Melbourne, Florida.


Talented but deeply personally troubled and an alcoholic, Morrison's father was a Navy officer who would rise to the rank of Admiral.

Wednesday, September 20, 2023

Thursday, September 20, 1973. The Battle of the Sexes and the Death of Jim Croce.

"The Battle of the Sexes" took place in the Houston Astrodome between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. King won three straight sets.

King and Riggs prior to the match.

This event was a big deal at the time, and I can recall my parents watching the television coverage of it.  It's always seemed odd to me as Riggs, who had been a tennis great in his youth, was well past his prime, while King was in hers.  Riggs, however, was quite the promoter and much of the attention can be attributed to that.

It was, up until that point, the most watched tennis match of all time.


Jim Croce, age 30, was killed along with five others when a chartered Beechcraft E18S hit a tree during takeoff from the Natchitoches Regional Airport in Louisiana.  

Croce was a well known pop singer at the time.  When in grade school, one year we had to learn his Time In A Bottle song for a performance of some sort.  Perhaps it's for that reason, but I've never liked that song since then, and I didn't like it then.  Or maybe its just the song.  I have always liked his Leroy Brown song.

Tuesday, August 15, 2023

Wednesday, August 15, 1973. The end of American involvement in the Vietnam War.

US bombing of Cambodia halted, bringing to an end US combat operations in Southeast Asia.

A7 Corsair II at Korat.

The last raid was flown by two A7's flying out of Korat Air Base in Thailand.  

When I was a National Guardsman, I had the interesting experience of having had a Colorado Air National Guard A7 roll over upside down above me as I was driving a Jeep attempting to clear an artillery location.  The pilot spotted me from quite high as I was driving around a curve and went into a dive, while still upside down, and came right over the top of me as I drove around the curve.  Had it been an actual conflict, I and everyone in the Jeep would have been killed.

On the same day, the USS Constellation departed Yankee Station, a fixed point off of the coast of North Vietnam.

Nixon addressed the nation on Watergate for the first time, asking the country to look forward rather than backwards, and declaring he had no knowledge of the events until after they had occured.

A rock band by the name Sick Man of Europe renamed itself Cheap Trick.

Thursday, July 13, 2023

Friday, July 14, 1973. The Archives Disaster, Nixon has a bad day, Perón has a good day and Queen.

The Military Personnel Archives Center in Overland Missouri caught fire shortly after midnight, resulting in one of the worst archival accidents in American history.  The center relates:

The Fire:

Shortly after midnight, on July 12, 1973, a fire was reported at the NPRC's military personnel records building at 9700 Page Boulevard in St. Louis, MO. Firefighters arrived on the scene only 4 minutes and 20 seconds after the first alarm sounded and entered the building. While they were able to reach the burning sixth floor, the heat and the smoke forced the firefighters to withdraw at 3:15am. In order to combat and contain the flames, firefighters were forced to pour great quantities of water onto the exterior of the building and inside through broken windows. The fire burned out of control for 22 hours; it took two days before firefighters were able to re-enter the building. The blaze was so intense that local Overland residents had to remain indoors, due to the heavy acrid smoke. It was not until July 16, nearly four and a half days after the first reports, that the local fire department called the fire officially out.

During the long ordeal, firefighters faced severe problems due to insufficient water pressure. Exacerbating the situation, one of the department's pumper trucks broke down after 40 hours of continuous operation. Numerous times, the fire threatened to spread down to the other floors; but firefighters were successful in halting its advance. In all, it took the participation of 42 fire districts to combat the disastrous blaze. Due to the extensive damages, investigators were never able to determine the source of the fire.

 


The Aftermath:

The National Archives focused its immediate attention on salvaging as much as possible and quickly resuming operations at the Page facility. Even before the final flames were out, staff at the NPRC had begun work towards these efforts. All requests and records shipments from other government agencies were temporarily halted, and certain vital records were removed from the burning building for safekeeping. These included the NPRC's operating records, a computer index for a major portion of the NPRC's holdings, and more than 100,000 reels of morning reports for the Army (1912-1959) and Air Force (1947-1959). The latter proved especially important in the days following, as NPRC's officials determined that the fire damage had been worst among the Army and Air Force records for this same time period. As such, on July 23, 1973, the Government issued a Federal Property Management Regulations Bulletin (FPMR B-39) halting Federal agencies from disposing of records that might be useful in documenting military service. Such records have proved vital in efforts to reconstruct basic service information for requestors.

On July 23, the NPRC awarded a construction contract to clear and remove the remains from the ruined sixth floor. That same day, employees, previously on administrative leave, returned to work to assist in recovery efforts and resume reference services. The removal and salvage of water and fire damaged records from the building was the most important priority, and such efforts were overseen by a specially appointed project manager. Their work led to the recovery of approximately 6.5 million burned and water damaged records.

Following the fire, the most immediate concern in the center revolved around water. In order to combat the blaze, firefighters had been forced to pour millions of gallons of water into the building. To stop sporadic rekindling of fire, firefighters continued spraying water on the building until late July. In addition, broken water lines continued to flood the building until they could be capped. Water damage was heaviest on the 5th floor but was spread throughout the building. Standing water, combined with the high temperatures and humidity of a typical St. Louis summer, created a situation ripe for mold growth. As paper is highly susceptible to mold, officials sprayed thymol throughout the building to control any outbreak.

Controlling the spread of mold was one concern; but, so too, was the issue of how to dry the millions of water-soaked records. Initially, NPRC staffers shipped these water-damaged records in plastic milk crates to a temporary facility at the civilian records center on Winnebago, where hastily constructed drying racks had been assembled from spare shelving. When it was discovered that McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Corporation in St. Louis had vacuum-drying facilities, the NPRC diverted its water damaged records there for treatment. The vacuum-dry process took place in a chamber that had previously been utilized to simulate temperature and pressure conditions for the Mercury and Gemini space missions. The chamber was large enough to accommodate approximately 2,000 plastic milk cartons of water and fire damaged records. Once inside, McDonnell Douglas technicians lowered the air in the chamber to the freezing point and then filled the room with hot dry air, which squeezed out the water molecules. For each chamber load, they were able to extract approximately 8 pounds of water per container - the equivalent of nearly 8 total tons of water for each session. In addition to utilizing two more supplemental drying chambers at McDonnell Douglas, the NPRC also sent records to a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) facility in Ohio for drying.

 


Towards Reconstruction:

As part of the reconstruction effort, the NPRC established a "B" registry file (or Burned File) to index the 6.5 million recovered records. So too, the NPRC established a separate temperature controlled "B" file area to protect and safeguard the damaged records. Later, in April 1974, the NPRC established the "R" registry file (or Reconstructed File) to further assist with reconstruction efforts. Since then, staffers have placed all newly reconstructed records into the "R" registry file and stored them in an area separate from the "B," or burned, files.

In the months following the fire, the NPRC initiated several new records recovery and reconstruction efforts, including the establishment of a new branch to deal with damaged records issues. As many military personnel records had been partially or completely destroyed by the fire, the new branch's central mission was to reconstruct records for those requesting service information from the NPRC. While some staffers sought to recover such information from documents and alternate sources outside of the NPRC, others searched through the center's organizational files for records to supplement the destroyed OMPFs.

These alternate sources have played a vital role in the NPRC's efforts to reconstruct service files. Some of the more important records used by the NPRC to supplement damage files include: Veterans Administration (VA) claims files, individual state records, Multiple Name Pay Vouchers (MPV) from the Adjutant General's Office, Selective Service System (SSS) registration records, pay records from the Government Accounting Office (GAO), as well as medical records from military hospitals, entrance and separation x-rays and organizational records. Many work hours were spent making these sources usable. Efforts included: the transfer of records to the NPRC, screening projects and securing access to VA computer records.

In terms of loss to the cultural heritage of our nation, the 1973 NPRC Fire was an unparalleled disaster. In the aftermath of the blaze, recovery and reconstruction effort took place at an unprecedented level. Thanks to such recovery efforts and the use of alternate sources to reconstruct files, today's NPRC is able to continue its primary mission of serving our country's military and civil servants.

Learn more about burned records and how the NPRC's Preservation Laboratory works to treat and make these damaged files accessible

In my experience, records in the destroyed range often have actually survived and, given that service records tend to be duplicated in all sorts of ways, they can often be reconstituted.  Nonetheless, it's been reported that, 80% of records for U.S. Army personnel discharged November 1, 1912, to January 1, 1960, 75% of U.S. Air Force personnel discharged September 25, 1947, to January 1, 1964, with names alphabetically after Hubbard, James E., were lost.

Of note here, the Army was of very small size, following 1865, up until 1917, after which it remained large until the end of the Cold War. Even at that, it has never returned to its pre-1940 size.  Additionally, of note, up until 1947 the Air Force was a branch of the Army.   The damage range includes World War One, World War Two and the Korean War.

On a personal note, my father's Korean War Air Force records would not have been touched, as they were not in the damage range.  One of my uncle's records from the late 1950s would have been, however, although I don't know if they were included in the destroyed records.  The records of other family members from World War Two might have been.

The cause of the fire was never determined.  A workman who was smoking and who had extinguished a cigarette shortly before it began assumed he was the cause, but was not found culpable in a grand jury investigation.  An electrical short is strongly suspected.

President Nixon was reported to be suffering from pneumonia.  On the same day, Alexander Butterfield, head of the Federal Aviation Administration, and chief assistant to H. R. Halderman, revealed taht almost all of President Nixon's Oval Offce conversations had been taped.

Nixon was not having a good day.

Héctor José Cámpora resigned as President of Argentina in order to allow Juan Perón to return to power.

The British band Queen released, well, "Queen".

Saturday, March 25, 2023

Only a Fool Would Say That

Only a Fool Would Say That was Steely Dan's song in reaction to John Lennon's Marxist anthem Imagine.

I'm glad some other musicians reacted.  Imagine is a horrible song, espousing an ideology that, while he claimed it would result in "nothing to kill or die for", killed more in the 20th Century than any other ideology going.

Lawrence Reed has an article on Lennon himself in The American Spectator.  It catalogs Lennon's real character, including his physical abuse of his first wife and his multiple extramarital affairs.  He's not a guy to be admired for any reason, but for some reason, perhaps his late physical appearance, and a decades long Libby Custer like effort to boost his image has created a false one for him.

I don't really get why people idolize performers anyway, except for their work.  I love the music of Jimi Hendrix, but he wasn't example a model of clean and effective living.

And interestingly, people will recite music and sing it without really pondering what the lyrics actually mean.  In our "Me Too" era, this is astounding.  Imagine is a Communist anthem.  Sweet Home Alabama excuses ongoing racial segregation in the South.  Brand New Key really does have sort of a creepy set of double meanings quality to it.  

And in spite of my self, I like those last two songs.

But at the same time, I guess, I don't idolize the Leonard Skynard or Melanie Safka

Monday, January 30, 2023

Tuesday, January 30, 1973. The return of PFC Ronald L. Ridgeway.

The Defense Department discovered that a North Vietnamese provided list of 555 POWs included Marine PFC Ronald L. Ridgeway of Houston, who had been listed as Killed In Action.  He would be promoted to Sergeant and medically discharged in November 1973.

His girlfriend, Lawanda Taylor, had not married since his disappearance in 1968, and they would subsequently marry.  He would go to work in the Veterans Administration.

Chae Myung-shin (채명신,; 蔡命新), commander of South Korean forces in South Vietnam.  He had served in the Imperial Japanese Army as a conscript late in World War Two, and then escaped to South Korean to avoid the Communists.   A Korean Protestant Christian from a Christian family, he died in 2013 at age 88.

On the same day, the first 125 of 37,000 South Korean troops in Vietnam left the country. The South Korean Army retained a large presence in South Vietnam right up into 1973 and had to be pressured by the US to leave, although the US also considered leaving South Korean troops in the country into 1974 given the slow progress of the ARVN in the regions the Korean troops were located.  By 1973, South Korean troops constituted the vast majority of foreign combat troops in South Vietnam

Senator John C. Stennis was shot and wounded in front of his Washington, D. C. home in a robbery attempt.

The rock band Wicked Lester rebranded itself and performed for the first time as KISS.

Thursday, January 19, 2023

Tuesday, January 19, 1943. Birth of Janis Joplin.


 Janis Joplin was born on this day in 1943 in Port Arthur, Texas.

A blues influenced musical great, with a unique raspy voice, she was perpetually a troubled individual and died in 1970 at age 27.