Hi, I'm Bud's Night, the host of the Taking a Walk podcast music History on Foot, and we're going to take a look at this week in music history, or the week of July twenty eighth.

And we look.

Over and there he is over at the music history desk, Harry Jacobs.

Welcome.

It's buzz.

Great to be here again.

Happy to be here, happy to be above ground.

That's the way, that's the way we roll.

A lot of our a lot of our peers, a lot of our people, you know Ozzie recently, uh, you know gone, they're they're they're dropping like flies.

Buzz.

Don't like hearing these, uh, these bad news events that occur around our music now icons.

Now don't don't at all.

Let's let's do the week.

This is the week of July twenty eighth through the third of August, obviously, And here we are, July twenty eighth.

The Grateful Dead, the band Almond bro All performed at Watkins Glenn in New York.

You ever been up to Watkins Glenn?

I think I like drove by at one time or something like that.

And that event was one that show that bill was one in particular that I really wanted to see but never really had the opportunity.

It sounded like it was outstanding.

I've never seen a show there, and that does sound like a great Minus the Dead, I was not never a huge Dead fan, but I love the band and the Alman Brothers.

I'm a nut for But I went to Watkins Glenn for a NASCAR race, and I'm not a NASCAR person.

So my first experience with NASCAR was Watkins Glenn.

Do you know the difference between Watkins Glenn and like, you know, Talladega or one of the other raceways.

Couldn't even venture a guess, Harry, Yeah, So it was the same thing for me too.

I had no idea Watkins Glen is a road course.

Most courses are ovals, you know, they're just making left turns, they're literally going around in circles.

Watkins Glen is a road course, so there's highs and lows.

And they're going kind of through the woods and through not through the woods, but just you know, in this huge field and the roads carved out and it's just a very different track than most NASCAR.

Courses.

And it was loud and rambunctious and fun and it's that must have been a great spot for a concert.

I bet it was loud, rambunctious, fun and smell is all get out.

Yes, six hundreds, Well, you know what for both events and the NASCAR event was there was nothing pretty about that.

And I'm sure six hundred thousand fans for the.

Dead and for the band and for the Almond Brothers probably an equally smelly group.

No.

I wonder what the uh the band members all felt about the gig.

It was probably a bit of a mess.

It's in the middle, listen, it's in the middle of nowhere.

Also right, so they're schlepping from you know, Ithaca, a Rochester or some somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

So there we go.

Another Rochester mentioned.

There you go.

I love my Rochester.

July twenty ninth, nineteen sixty six, Bob Dylan was in a motorcycle accident speaking of New York at Woodstock in Woodstock, not at Woodstock, but you know, in Woodstock, and this caused him to take a little bit of a breather from public performances.

Obviously, a motorcycle wreck will do that for you.

There was always a lot of unknown stories behind that story.

We never I think still to this day.

I don't know if we ever got the complete story on what really happened, because, as you know, and as the audience knows, anything around Bob Dylan is shrouded in intense mystery.

Yeah, this was a you know, who knows what?

If we'll ever you know, actually hear the story.

I've not ever heard him talk about it, you know.

Ever, No, he's not going to know.

Yeah, he may not remember it now at eighty I'm teasing we listen, we kid, because we love.

I bet he remembers every stitch of what he's forgotten.

Listen, A motorcycle accident, I would imagine, is not a thing you forget.

And I'm a thirty eight year motorcycle rider, and I would be able to tell you if I was.

Ever in one of knock on woods.

So anyway, this changed his career trajectory and it made him a little bit more of an introspective man.

I would imagine a death experience.

Near death experience will do that to you.

It will do it.

July twenty ninth, nineteen seventy four, Cass Elliott Mama Cass of the Mamas and the Papas died of a heart attack in London.

She was just thirty two years old.

You know, she was this group, you know, when we were in rock radio, this was kind of a group that you looked at and went and kind of schlocky adult contemporary.

We listened to it now with a new appreciation.

You know, California Dreaming and some of the other music they did is just really wonderful music.

And by all accounts too, she was just beloved around the music community.

Everybody loved hanging around with her, collaborating with loved her as a person.

It was a tremendous loss.

August first, nineteen sixty five, the Beatles released help we Can Never get through one of these episodes without a Beatles item and was released in the UK, followed in the US on August thirteenth, Helped Ticket to Ride Yesterday.

When I was reading this before we went on, I thought, oh, Ticket to Ride.

There's a fun song I haven't heard in a million years.

Oh, everything off of it is fantastic.

And you know, we know every one of these we do.

We will have the Beatles somehow coming up.

Yeah, no question about this, and a big day for music.

In nineteen eighty one, MTV launched in the us, and this changed everything for music in so many ways.

Stones, Who, def Leppard, Aerosmith, Dire Straits.

I mean, think about you know what happened to music after MTV started.

And we were just fixated on just watching it hours and hours and hours without ending.

It was like a fascination in those early days and weeks of what MTV was all about.

It was completely insane.

Really well.

Were bands that were impacted in such a kind of a game changing way, Bands like Aerosmith that really got a second life as a result of MTV.

Right, Oh, think about it.

They were in the toilet, you know at that point.

And there were bands that would not have maybe had a life if it wasn't.

For MTV either.

Yeah, think about other bands that got recognition that they probably wouldn't have gotten to that audience at that point.

You know.

Dire Straits obviously money for nothing, that they were not necessarily a pop kind of band, and this made them obviously the song was huge, money for nothing, but the video skyrocketed them Men Without.

Hats, Safety Dance, Safety Dance.

And what was the first song I remember the first video they played.

Oh, the first one.

It was video video killed the Radio Star by the Buggles, yep, by the Buggles.

Yeah, you know, Stones and all these people participated in this, and you know they were kind of forced to in a way.

A lot of people went kicking and screaming, right, There were a lot of people that that didn't want to play ball, didn't want to do this, and then they.

Eventually came around to it.

You know, yeah, you think you know, we talk, you know a lot about Bruce, but one of my memories is that in eighty four when Born in the USA came out all the videos that he participated in with his own songs, you know, I'm on Fire, being the mechanic, you know, Glory Days, you know, taking the mound, you know was probably a little league you know, ballpark, and all the videos that he ended up making as a as a result of this, the thematic ones were really interesting and are still interesting to me to watch, not just Bruses, but but others as well.

Hetty was a great one too, who really had a different kind.

Of vision and probably arguably a different audience too.

You know, at that point you think this if you think about MTV from a format perspective, and Buzz and I have history and the radio business, and a radio station wouldn't necessarily play something by the Sugar Hill Gang and the Rolling Stones and Aerosmith or Laura Brannigan or you know whatever, all on the same radio station.

MTV crossed those formatic borders in a way that changed everything.

No doubt, for sure.

They got away with it.

And it was just because we were fixated on, you know, just the you often brilliant design of these videos.

Those VJs.

We all kind of developed our own little relationships with You have a relationship.

You connected with Mark Goodman at one point.

I don't know that we're going to talk about that story, but you know those people, you know Nina and who is the blonde kid who escapes my memory?

Adam Curry.

No, not Adam Curry.

It was was that.

The founder of podcasts I believe too.

Okay, well we'll have to check.

I believe he Adam gets it.

Should get a lot of credit around podcast and maybe as one of the true founders.

Very interesting anyway, August first, nineteen eighty one, MTV and it just changed everything.

And now I don't think they play music videos.

At all, that's right, we can't even I don't have cable TV so I don't even know where to find it other than same here.

August second, nineteen seventy five, speaking to Aerosmith.

Sweet Emotion peaked at number thirty six in the Billboard Hot one hundred.

This goes down in my list in the.

Top five songs classic rock songs that you know, if I was on a desert island and only had access to five songs for the rest of my life, sweet Emotion would be one of those.

Songs, and still sounds amazing when you crank it up in the radio.

Yeah, you think they're gonna play again.

There's talk Joe Perry was talking about maybe one more show.

I think so.

Yeah, I could see it.

You know.

Being Boston guys, we were spoiled by some of the shows and some of the extra stuff they did around town.

Were you at that show where they played on the train on Boylston Street.

No, I wasn't.

My most memorable show that was kind of a showcase was the Mama Kin's stuff when they were opening up, you know, the club, you know in the Fenway area.

You this is very funny.

It's literally coming to me right now.

Didn't we see them, Not at Mama Kin but didn't we see them at a club in Cambridge somewhere downstairs.

I remember like having a couple of this is going to date us, a couple of red dog bottle beers in my hand, and we were downstairs and there might have been three.

Hundred people in the room.

Do you remember that?

Was that?

You and I?

Yeah, definitely?

And the club is briefly escaping me and we'll stop taping and then it'll come back to us, or we could edit it in and go it was.

Yeah, I'd rather leave it be and let it do what it normally does in these cases where it comes to us in the middle of the night and causes some sort of night terror and I'm screaming, I'm screaming, here's the name of the club.

So let's do let's do that because it was a great show.

Yeah, it was great and we were so close and it was just man, what a way to see those guys.

So last story for the week, August third, nineteen sixty three.

Beach Boys release Surfer Girl.

So much great music and I have a Beach Boys playlist on my phone.

Oh nice, Yeah, I mean I just I love it, love them so good.

Yeah, there you go.

That is this Week in music history for the week of July twenty eighth through August third, another great week.

Great well.

Thank you Harry Jacobs for this look at this week in music history, and thank you to all of you for checking out the Taking a Walk podcast, part of the iHeart podcast network.