Today’s highlights include: Happy Birthday, Elvis, Billboard hits – then and now, remembering Op Art, the New Seekers & the Coke ad in the last episode of Mad Men, fewer commercials on NBC, Donny Osmond’s 62nd album & how to go invisible on the Internet.
Oh the things that used to bug us! Today in 1969, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were barred from an exclusive hotel for wearing “Op Art” pants. The optical illusion must have been too much for the hotel staff to take. They were both asked to leave the Hotel Crillen in Lima, Peru after refusing to change clothes.
NBCUniversal says it’s reducing the amount of ads its serves during prime-time even further, and it’s looking now at other times throughout the day to do the same. Seems like a good idea, with audiences deserting their network for Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. Now if we could just get the bankrupt radio companies like iHeart to do the same thing.
Elvis Presley is on our birthday list. He would be 83 today, born at his parent’s home, a two-room house that was built by his father at 306 Old Saltillo Road, East Tupelo, Mississippi. A twin brother, Jessie Garon, was stillborn. The King is still raking it in. His estate’s 2017 earnings were $37 million dollars. Here he is with Ann Margaret in a scene from “Viva Las Vegas”.
What’s hot this week on the Billboard Charts. Call me old fashioned, but I can’t connect with any of these. Contrast that with these number ones from every year on this date via radio station WKNR in Detroit.
(1965) Name Game, Shirley Ellis
(1966) Jenny Take a Ride!, Mitch Ryder
(1967) I’m a Believer/Steppin’ Stone, Monkees
(1968) Nobody But Me, Human Beinz
(1969) Crimson & Clover, Tommy James & The Shondells
(1970) Venus, Shocking Blue
(1971) Knock Three Times, Dawn
(1972) American Pie, Don McLean
For all of you who have those smart phones that unlock when you look at em, read this Mashable article to see if a photo of your face can do it too. The good news: iPhones are immune. And speaking of Internet security, famed hacker Kevin Mitnick teaches us “how to go invisible online“, courtesy of our friends at Wired Magazine.
From the “I feel old” department: 50 years ago today The final episode of “Shindig” airs on ABC, featuring The Kinks and The Who. 50 years after his first solo release, Donny Osmond is back in the studio to work on his 62nd album. 40 years ago today, the band Rush are named as the country’s official Ambassadors Of Music by the Canadian government.
Happy Birthday to: Elvis Presley, 1935 (d. 1977); Shirley Bassey (Goldfinger Vocalist), 1937; Stephen Hawking (Genius), 1942 (d. 2018); Robby Krieger (The Doors), 1946; Terry Sylvester (Hollies), 1947; David Bowie, 1947 (d. 2016)
We leave you with this Mad Men memory. Today in 1972, The New Seekers had an international hit w ‘I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing. The song started as a Coca Cola TV ad, as imagined by Don Draper in the final MM episode.
