April 6, 1968: Pink Floyd officially announced that founder and frontman Syd Barrett had left the group. His deteriorating mental health had made it impossible for him to continue, paving the way for David Gilmour to take a permanent lead.
1990: During a Mötley Crüe show in New Haven, Connecticut, drummer Tommy Lee decided to swing from a rope attached to the stage scaffolding. He lost his grip, fell, and knocked himself unconscious in front of the crowd. The show ended early, and Lee was rushed to the hospital with a concussion.
April 6: Warren Haynes birthday.
April 6 1974 ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest with "Waterloo"
April 7 1969 The Allman Brothers Band played their first show at the Jacksonville Armory
April 8 1977 The Clash released their self-titled debut album in the UK
April 11 1964 The Beatles held the top five spots on the Billboard Hot 100 simultaneously - a feat never repeated April 12 1963. Bob Dylan performed his first major solo concert at Town Hall in New York City
April 12, 1954: "Rock Around the Clock" is Born
Bill Haley & His Comets recorded "Rock Around the Clock" at the Pythian Temple in New York. While it wasn't an instant hit, its inclusion in the 1955 film Blackboard Jungle turned it into the first rock and roll song to top the charts in both the US and the UK.
April 12, 1966: In one of rock’s most eerie coincidences, Jan Berry (of the surf-rock duo Jan and Dean) crashed his Corvette into a parked truck in Beverly Hills. He suffered severe brain damage and paralysis. The accident happened just two years after the duo released their hit song, "Dead Man’s Curve," which described a nearly identical crash just a short distance from where Berry actually hit the truck.
April 12, 1968 Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention performed at a prestigious National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences dinner. Zappa spent the set insulting the audience, calling the event "pompous hokum" and telling the industry executives they were responsible for manufacturing "crap."
