January

On 1/1/62, Decca Records honcho Mike Smith celebrated the New Year by auditioning a pair of promising new acts. He signed one, the immortal Brian Poole and the Tremeloes. The rejected band — a group of clean-cut go-getters calling themselves The Beatles — eventually found another label… The 1/1/65 issue of England's pop-music rag New Music Express reported that the U.S. government was denying work visas to U.K. groups, forcing the cancellation of a tour by the Zombies, among others, and thus sparing America's youth from the corrupting influence of the British Invasion. On 1/12/65, the Zombies got around the evil plot by appearing on the premiere of the NBC TV series Hullabaloo. The band played “She's Not There” in a segment taped in London and presented by Brian Epstein… Epstein's bud John Lennon found himself in a public morals dispute on 1/17/70 as “Bag One,” his show of erotic lithographs, opened at London Arts Gallery. Complaints by outraged citizens prompted Scotland Yard Detective Inspector Frederick Luff to seize several prints as evidence of pornography. Police records released to London's Public Records Office more than 30 years later indicate Luff believed “The only danger to a successful prosecution…is the argument that [the lithographs] are so pathetic as to be incapable of influencing anyone and therefore unable to deprave or corrupt any person.” A magistrate apparently agreed. Charges against show curator Eugene Schuster were dropped, and the prints were returned to the gallery, where they were presumably sold for a lot of money.

February

Indiana governor Matthew Welsh asked broadcasters to ban the Kingsmen's version of “Louie, Louie” on 2/1/64, declaring the song pornographic. When presented with manifest evidence that the lyrics on the record are in fact completely unintelligible, Welsh supported his case by claiming the song made his “ears tingle” … Years after meeting the King and a scant nine months after marrying him, Priscilla Beaulieu Presley gave birth to Elvis's only child, Lisa Marie Presley, in Memphis on 2/1/68. The joy of parenthood wasn't enough to keep 'em together, however; on 2/23/72, Elvis and Priscilla separated … Fear of a lawsuit by one Eva von Zeppelin (relative of airship inventor Ferdinand von Zeppelin) caused Led Zeppelin to temporarily change its name to the Nobs for a 2/28/70 concert in Copenhagen, Denmark. The Danish woman threatened to sue if Zep performed in the country under its real name… On 2/13/82, a 300-pound headstone the grave of former Lynyrd Skynyrd singer Ronnie Van Zant was stolen from an Orange Park, Florida, cemetery. The stone was found in a dry river bed two weeks later.