July 3rd, 1973, David Bowie does his final show as Ziggy Stardust. He does it at the Hammersmith Odeon in London. Leading up to the show David says “Not only is this the last show of the tour, but it’s the last show we’ll ever do. A lot of people take that to mean that he’s going to retire from the music business. All he’s really retiring is the character of Ziggy Stardust. They make a movie of that last show. It’s directed by DA Pennebaker and it’s called ”Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars."
Today in 1971, Jim Morrison of The Doors is found dead in his bathtub. He is only 27 years old. They never do an autopsy on him, and even though drugs are suspected, his official cause of death on the death certificate is listed as cardiac arrest brought on by respiratory failure. How they came to that determination without an autopsy, I don’t know. But that probably fueled a lot of the conspiracy theories and rumors through the years that Jim waasn’t dead.
Today in 1969 we lose Brian Jones from The Rolling Stones at 27. He dies in a swimming pool. He has high levels of alcohol and barbiturates in his system, but still his death is ruled accidental. In recent years a lot of people have been floating the theory that he was actually murdered.
We also have to say happy birthday to Ratt front man, Stephen Pearcy, who was born today in 1956. You can watch a conversation we had with Stephen about the 40th anniversary of Ratt’s debut album “Out Of The Cellar” here.
