A lot happened on this day in rock history. The influence of rock on indie rock music is immeasurable and so we honor the pioneers who came before.

1964 – The Kinks release their self-titled debut album, featuring the ground-breaking No. 1 hit “You Really Got Me” Many artists and bands over the years have credited The Kinks for starting hard-hitting, loud and discordant rock music, and helping lay down the formation of genres like hard rock, metal, and punk music.

https://youtu.be/cnPjdB6TAKk?t=5

The song is also one of the seminal and most recognizable songs of rock history around the world. Peter Travers the well-known Rolling Stone rock critic wrote in 1964 that when he first heard those initial hard, chunky and highly distorted chords that open the song, he was listening to the radio while driving on the Pacific Coast Highway, and as he tells it, he almost drove off the road.

1969 – Indie singer/songwriter Elliott Smith is born in Omaha. He was nominated for an Academy Award in 1997. Smith took his life in L.A. on October 22, 2003 at the age of just 34. Thank you for all the special songs!

1928 – Andy Warhol is born. He is instrumental in promoting the success of The Velvet Underground during The Factory days in NYC.

1983 – A friend and guitarist of David Bowie, avant-garde musician and operatic vocalist Klaus Nomi, dies of AIDS in NYC. He is one of the first celebrities to be known to die of AIDS in the U.S. Meanwhile much of the rest of the country reacts with fear, desertion, and anything but love with countless family members and “friends” turning away from their dying loved ones, allowing them to rot away in the corner of a dark hospital room. President Reagan refuses to even mention AIDS for years.

1982 – Pink Floyd’s film ‘The Wall’ opens in NYC.

1977 – Sex Pistols hit No. 4 in U.K. with “Pretty Vacant”

1973 – Stevie Wonder is a passenger in a car accident in NC; the accident leaves him with loss of his sense of smell. Nothing ever stopped him from making some of the best music of the 60s and 70s that influenced countless other artists and bands we all love.