Today in Boston ROCK: September 20

Welcome to another edition of Today in Boston ROCK, where I, Adam 12, spotlight Very Important Days In Rock History. September 20 is one.

• 1968

  September 20, 1968: Hunter Benedict Shepherd is born Okinawa. You know him as Ben Shepherd, bassist for Soundgarden. Also? Shepherd is the guy who introduced Krist Novoselic to Chad Channing, with the former bringing the latter into Nirvana as their drummer from 1988 to 1990. Shepherd was technically a member of Nirvana for a spell as well, touring with the band leading up to the release of Nevermind as their backup second guitarist, despite never making it on stage with the band. Let’s take a moment and appreciate his low end work on Badmotorfinger‘s “Rusty Cage.”

• 1976

  September 20, 1976: AC/DC releases Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, their third album. Of course, American rock fans wouldn’t get hands on it for another five years (unless you were savvy enough to pick it up as an import), because the album was only released in Australia and Europe. It wouldn’t see a U.S. release until 1981, more than a year after Bon Scott‘s death. To celebrate the 45th anniversary, we’ve ranked Scott’s 25 best tunes.

  

  Released September 20, 1976.

• 1980

  September 20, 1980: Ozzy Osbourne releases his solo debut album, Blizzard of Ozz. Again, this was a U.K. release; the album was released in the U.S. in March of 1981. Last year, we marked the album’s 40th anniversary with this animated video, which is fun. But not as much fun as watching Ozzy, Randy Rhoads, Bob Daisley, and Lee Kerslake doing it live.

• 2004

  September 20, 2004: Green Day releases American Idiot. I can’t overstate what a huge deal this album was. Critics (and even some fans!) had all but written off the band after 1997’s Nimrod and 2000’s Warning, albums that found the band moving away from their earlier, signature sound. So what did they do? They wrote a concept album. A punk rock opera. And it worked. Long live Jesus of Suburbia, and long live Green Day.