Today in rock history September 21st

1947 – Don Felder of the Eagles is born in Topanga, Calif. 1954 – Motorhead drummer “Filthy” Phil Taylor is born in Chesterfield, England. 1965 – The Moody Blues play their first major gig at London’s Royal Albert Hall as part of a bill called Brian Epstein’s Evening of Popular Music. They share manager Epstein with the Beatles. 1968 – Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum gives its Beatles statues their fifth hair and clothes makeover in four years, in keeping with the lads’ taste for hippie fashions. 1971 – Pink Floyd give their album Meddle a quadraphonic mix at London’s Command Studios. 1974 – Bachman-Turner Overdrive release “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet.” 1979 – U.N. Secretary General Kurt Waldheim makes an appeal to the Beatles to reunite to benefit the Vietnamese boat people. 1987 – Bassist Jaco Pastorius of Blood, Sweat & Tears dies after being beaten up in Florida. He had been trying to break in to Fort Lauderdale’s Midnight Club. He was 35. 1991 – Status Quo play four British arenas in 11 hours. The Guinness Book of World Records is on hand to confirm that, yep, it’s a record. 1993 – Nirvana’s album “In Utero” is released. 1999 – Hole bassist Melissa Auf Der Maur leaves the grunge band to embark on a solo career. She changes her mind and joins the Smashing Pumpkins instead. 2000 – Bono appears on Capitol Hill in an effort to get American lawmakers to agree to his debt relief plan for the Third World. 2000 – Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford, and Tony Banks reform as Genesis for a one-off performance at the London Hilton during the British Music Roll of Honour gala, organized by the Music Managers Forum. The act’s manager, Tony Smith receives the Peter Grant Award for outstanding achievement at the event. 2004 – Singer Cat Stevens (“Wild World”), who changed his name to Yusuf Islam after becoming a Muslim, is denied entry into the United States after his name is found on an anti-terrorist watch list. Stevens denies links to the terror group Hamas. 2009: Eddie Van Halen made a cameo appearance on the season premiere of the seventh season of Two and a Half Men.