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#1 singles
7th Friday
On My Mind
The Easybeats
14th
Friday On My Mind
The Easybeats
21st
Green Green Grass Of Home
Tom Jones
28th
Green Green Grass Of Home
Tom Jones
local releases
Born A Man / Big Chance
The Bee Gees
Coalman / All The King's Horses
Ronnie Burns
Wander Boy / You're Bad
The Executives
Where Are You? / Second Hand People
Mike Furber
Sad Dark Eyes / The Woman I Love
The Loved Ones
No Worries / Humpy Dumpy
Tony Worsley & The Blue Jays
overseas releases
The Doors
The Doors
Da Capo
Love
So You Want To Be A Rock 'N' Roll Star
The Byrds
Let's Spend The Night Together / Ruby Tuesday,
Between The Buttons (LP)
The Rolling Stones
Spencer Davis Group
I'm A Man
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Media magnate Sir Frank Packer orders the recall and pulping of
the scheduled 31 January edition of The Bulletin
because of a cartoon by Les Tanner and an editorial on capital punishment.
Packer also interferes at GTV-9, forcing the last minute cancellation of
the screening of a widely-publicised BBC documentary on capital punishment.
Packer reportedly acted at the behest of Victorian Premier Sir Henry Bolte
who has refused to commute the controversial death sentence passed on
prison escapee and murderer Ronald Ryan.
The Twilights arrive in the UK.
The first direct live TV broadcast
between Australian and Canada takes place, showing 'Australia
Day' at Expo '67 in Montreal. The eight hours of coverage
includes a performance by The Seekers.
The Sydney Folk Song Club
opens in the Hotel Elizabeth, in Elizabeth St Sydney.
Frustrated by lack of recognition The Bee Gees decide to
leave Australia and return to the UK.
The first edition of London OZ is published in the UK.
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1 Simultaneous Mega-Rave 'FreakOuts' are
held at the Roundhouse, London (featuring Pink Floyd, The Move and
The Who) and at Winterland in San Francisco.
- the death of country musician Moon Mullican. Known as
'the King of the Hillbilly Piano Players', Mullican was a major influence
on rock'n'roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis.
2 Former Hollywood actor
Ronald Reagan is sworn in as the new Republican Governor of California.
3 Open rebellion against the
autocratic rule of Mao Tse Tung breaks out in Shanghai, China.
4 In its first edition for 1967,
of Go-Set announces that The
Easybeats' international hit Friday On My Mind has reached #1 in Holland.
- The Jimi Hendrix Experience's
Hey Joe, The Move's Night Of Fear and The Lovin' Spoonful's
Nashville Cats debut on the British singles chart.
- U.S. folk singer Jesse Winchester emigrates to Canada to avoid being conscripted
to military service in Vietnam.
11 Go-Set magazine announces that pop duo
Bobby & Laurie will no longer work together.
- The groundbreaking BBC-TV play 'Cathy Come Home', first broadcast in
December 1966, is repeated due to popular demand.
13 Beatles manager Brian Epstein signs a
merger deal with Australian-born entrepreneur
Robert Stigwood. The deal mergee Epstein's company NEMS Enterprises with the
Robert Stigwood Organisation, and Stigwood becomes co-managing director of NEMS.
That evening, Epstein and The Beatles attend a show at The Bag O'Nails club
featuring Jimi Hendrix.
14 The
Gathering of the Tribes for the Human Be-In is held in San
Francisco's Golden Gate Park. The event is a focal point
for America's emerging psychedelic/underground scene. 20,000 people
attend, many of them tripping on "White Lightning" Owsley's
latest and most potent batch of LSD, specially prepared and donated
for the occasion. Speakers inlcude Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, Allen Ginsberg,
Laurence Ferlinghetti, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, Robert Baker
and Jerry Rubin, with musical performances by Jefferson Airplane,
The Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Big Brother
& the Holding Company and The Sir Douglas Quintet. The huge gathering
passes without incident (and reputedly without litter) although
that night police arrest groups of revellers in the Haight-Ashbury district
for "failing to disperse".
- The Monkees score their first UK #1 hit with I'm A Believer.
16 Britain's Boys' Own Paper
ceases publication after 88 years.
16 Go-Set
carries news that Melbourne pop group MPD Ltd have split up;
Max Merritt & The Meteors are reported to be recruiting a new horn player, and The Purple
Hearts deny that they are breaking up.
20 South Vietnamese Prime Minister
Air Vice-Marshall Ky makes a controversial visit to Australia.
Anti-war protesters mount strong demonstrations against Ky and hurl
abuse at him wherever he appears. Australian PM Harold Holt is forced
to deny allegations that Ky and his supporters had murdered his predecessor,
President Ngo Van Diem and that the Ky government is riddled with corruption --
charges which are later proven to be true.
21 Melbourne group
Eighteenth Century Quartet
play their final gig at Angelsea, Victoria.
23
The Purple Hearts issue a press statement stating
that they feel they are stagnating musically and have decided to break up.
26
The Big Show tour with Roy
Orbison, The Walker Bros and The Yardbirds plays Melbourne Festival
Hall, supported by Johnny Young and The Mixtures. After the show
a custom-made Gibson Les Paul loaned to Yardbirds guitarist Jimmy
Page for the tour by Keith Richards is stolen, as
well as Fender guitar belonging to Mixtures guitarist
Laurie Arthur.
- ABC Chairman Dr James Darling is
tipped off by a highly-placed source in Canberra that his appointment
will not be renewed because the federal government's objections
to programs like Four Corners
27 The
second Big Show performance with Roy Orbison, The Walker
Bros and The Yardbirds at Melbourne Festival Hall, supported
by Johnny Young and The Mixtures.
- Winston Charles discotheque (the first
fully-licensed disco in Melbourne) opens at 55 Toorak Rd, South
Yarra. The opening weekend acts are The Why Four, Max Merritt & The
Meteors and The Clefs.
- Party Machine, Running Jumping Standing
Still, Adderly Smith Blues Band at Catcher (471 Flinders
Lane, Melbourne).
-
Tragedy strikes the Apollo moon landing program during
a pre-flight test for Apollo 204 (AS-204), the first manned mission
of the program, scheduled to be launched on February 21, 1967.
Astronauts Virgil "Gus"
Grissom, Edward H. White II and Roger B. Chaffee are killed when
a flash fire engulfs the Command Module during a pre-flight training
exercise on Pad 34 at Cape Kennedy. The subsequent investigation
reveals scores of design faults and examples of poor workmanship,
and leads to more than 100 changes in the Command Module's design.
NASA officials later admit that, without the improvements that
resulted from the fire, it is unlikely that the USA would have
reached the moon before the end of the Sixties. The mission is
subsequently renamed Apollo 1.
- the USA, the USSR and the UK sign a trilateral treaty banning the
deployment and use of nuclear weapons in space.
28 Party Machine
"a sensational new
R&B group" at Claxton
(Oakleigh, Melbourne.)
29 Running Jumping Standing Still +
Chelsea Set + The
Trip at Zhivago, Carrum (Melbourne)
- Britain's News Of The World begins
a sensational three-week exposé entitled "Drugs
& Pop Stars - Facts That Will Shock You". The
three articles include allegations of LSD parties hosted by The
Moody Blues and attended by top stars including The Who's
Pete Townshend and Cream's Ginger Baker, and alleged
admissions of drug use by leading musicians including Mick
Jagger. The first article targets singer-songwriter Donovan,
who soon becomes the first major British pop star to be arrested
and charged for drug possession.
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4th
I'm A Believer
The Monkees
11th
Snoopy vs The Red Baron
The Royal Guardsmen
18th
Snoopy vs The Red Baron
The Royal Guardsmen
26th
Snoopy vs The Red Baron
The Royal Guardsmen
local releases
What's Wrong
With The Way I Live? / 9.50
The Twilights
overseas releases
Penny Lane / Strawberry Fields Forever
The Beatles
Spicks &Specks
The Bee Gees
Buffalo Springfield
Buffalo Springfield
Younger Than Yesterday (LP)
The Byrds
Mellow Yellow
Donovan
Surrealistic Pillow (LP), SomebodyTo Love
Jefferson Airplane
I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)
Aretha Franklin
A Hard Road
John Mayall
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The Seekers' Georgy Girl
reaches #1 in Australia, #3 in the UK and #1 in the
USA. The single goes on to sell 3.5 million copies worldwide.
Successful pop duo Bobby
& Laurie split. Two members of their regular backing band The Rondells
(Gary Young and Wayne Duncan) will later become members of Daddy
Cool.
The first issue of the UK
edition of OZ is published in London.
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1 The
Seven Network premieres a new situation comedy series "My Name's
McGooley - What's Yours?" starring Gordon Chater, John
Meillon and Judy Farr.
2
Renowned British independent record producer Joe Meek
commits suicide after murdering his landlady at his London studio.
3
Ronald Ryan, the last person to be executed
in Australia, is hanged at Melbourne's Pentridge Prison. Ryan
had been convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of a
guard during a daring escape from Pentridge Prison in 1966.
On the day of the execution, civil liberties groups clash with
police in wild protests outside the prison, at which about 90
people are arrested.
4 Normie
Rowe & The Playboys perform at the Royal Albert Hall, supporting
Herman's Hermits.
- Buffalo Springfield's single For What
It's Worth is released in the US
5 The
Rolling Stones' song Let's Spend the Night Together is banned
from TV. The ban coincides with the second instalment of the News
Of The World exposé "Pop Stars & Drugs
- The Truth Will Shock You". Targeting The Rolling
Stones and lead singer Mick Jagger, the article claims that,
during a meeting at exclusive London club Blaise's, Jagger
admitted to using LSD and other drugs, took several Benzedrine
tablets, displayed a piece of hashish and invited his companions
to his flat for a "smoke". That evening, Mick Jagger
appears on Eammon Andrews' chat show and announces that he is
issuing a libel writ against the paper. It is later
revealed that the journalist "mistook" Stones' guitarist Brian
Jones for Jagger.
7 In one
of Australia's worst modern natural disasters, bushfires rage
out of control in south-eastern Tasmania, devastating
much of Hobart and surrounding areas. Soaring summer temperatures
and gale-force winds drive the fires to within 2km of the centre
of Hobart. 62 people are killed, hundreds are injured, 3000 people
are made homeless, 1400 buildings and 1500 vehicles are destroyed
and tens of thousands of animals perish. Losses are estimated
at $40 million. In the following weeks, many Australian pop performers,
including The Id, Tony Worsley and The Masters Apprentices appear
at benefit concerts around the country to raise money for bushfire relief.
- distinguished Aboriginal author and inventor
David
Unaipon dies. His achievements are later commemorated by the national
David Unaipon Award for Aboriginal writers, instituted in 1988, and by his portrait,
featured one side of the $50 note, first issued in 1995.
- The Bee Gees arrive back in the UK after 9 years in Australia.
8 The
Seekers' single Georgy Girl reaches the Top 5 on the American and
English charts.
- Go-Set's Feb. 8 edition carries a front-page story about The Beatles
new single Penny Lane / Strawberry Fields. Other stories include
news of a split in Melbourne group The Strangers, and a story on teen violence
in Sydney discos. The 'Watch This Space' column profiles new Brisbane band
Chelsea Set, touting them as a possible successor to the recently
defunct Purple Hearts. The group includes future Spectrum drummer
Ray Arnott.
- Gough Whitlam defeats Dr Jim Cairns and Frank Crean to replace
the retiring Arthur Calwell as leader of the federal Labor Party.
9 Famed
vaudevillian Will Mahoney dies in Melbourne aged 73.
Mahoney and his wife, actress Evie Hayes, came to Australia
in the 1930s to perform on the Tivoli circuit after successes
in London and New York. In the 1970s, Evie Hayes becomes one
of the resident judges on TV's long-running Young Talent Time,
hosted by former pop idol Johnny Young.
12 London's
News Of The World concludes its three-week "Pop
Stars & Drugs" exposé. The same night, the
paper tips off Sussex police about a party at Keith Richard's
home "Redlands" in West Wittering, and it is raided
in the early hours of the next morning, shortly after George
Harrison and his wife Patti have left. Although no arrests are
made at the time, Jagger and Richards are later charged with
drug possession. (-->10/5/67)
13 Teenagers
fans run wild at Heathrow Airport in London trying to get a
glimpse of The Monkees as they arrived for their first UK tour.
17 The
Beatles' landmark double-A-side single Penny Lane/Strawberry
Fields Forever is released in the UK.
- American nuclear scientist Dr Robert Oppenheimer,
the so-called 'Father of the Atom Bomb', dies at the age of 63.
18 Go-Set publishes
its first anniversary issue, which includes the announcement that
The Purple Hearts are breaking up; it also carries a story about
a riot at a Loved Ones concert in Tasmania at which lead singer
Gerry Humphreys had his trousers completely torn off by the crowd.
23
Major Peter Badcoe is involved an heroic military action
while working as Australian adviser to a South Vietnamese Regional Force
Company in support of a Sector operation in Phu Thu District. During the operation,
Badcoe monitors a radio report that the Sub-sector Adviser, a US Army Officer, had
been killed within 50 metres of an enemy machine gun position,
and that the US medical adviser had been wounded and was in immediate
danger from the enemy. With complete disregard for his own safety, Major Badcoe,
moves alone across 600 metres of fire-swept ground and reaches the wounded adviser,
attends to him and ensures his safety. He then organises a force of one
Platoon and leads them towards the enemy post. His personal leadership, encouragement,
and bravery in the face of hostile enemy fire forced the platoon to successfully
assault the enemy position and capture it, where Badcoe personally killed the machine
gunners directly in front of him. He then picked up the body of the dead officer
and ran back to the Command Post over open ground still covered by enemy fire. Two
weeks later Badcoe displays outstanding personal courage and leadership during two
subsequent operations on 7 March and 7 April.
Badcoe is killed in action during the April 7 operation and is subsequently awarded
the Victoria Cross.
22 Go-Set carries a front page
story on the controversial admission by The Monkees that they don't play on
their own recordings.
27 Pink
Floyd record their debut single Arnold Layne at
Sound Techniques Studio, London. The single is subsequently banned by the
BBC because of its subject matter (a man who steals women's underwear from
washing lines) but becomes a cult hit thanks to strong support from
pirate radio stations.
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4th
Snoopy
vs The Red Baron
The Royal Guardsmen
11th
Snoopy vs The Red Baron
The Royal Guardsmen
18th
Snoopy vs The Red Baron
The Royal Guardsmen
25th
Snoopy vs The Red Baron
The Royal Guardsmen
local releases
Roundabout / I'll Be Home
The Allusions
The Same Old Song
Ray Brown
Who'll Be the One/Saturday Night
The Easybeats (UK)
Hey Baby / Other Love
The La De Das
A Love Like Ours / The Loverly Car
The Loved Ones
overseas releases
Aretha Franklin
I
Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You (LP)
The Mamas & The Papas
Dedicated To The One I Love
The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground And Nico
The Small Faces
I Can't Make It
The Byrds
My Back Pages
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Purple Haze
The Doors
The Doors
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Sydney group The Nomads
(fronted by singer and future publisher and producer Gus McNeil) tour
Canberra and country Victoria.
Caught Red Handed by The Bentbeaks is banned
by Melbourne radio for alleged obscenity.
Johnny Young signs a record $5000 contract to perform
daily during the ten days of the Sydney Royal Easter Show, with
Ronnie Burns, Donna Gaye and backing bands, including the debut
of new Sydney band The Dave Miller Set
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The offices of The Australian are relocated to Sydney.
Marshall McLuhan's book The
Medium is the Message is published.
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1 Go-Set
headlines with news of The Bee Gees signing to Brian Epstein's
NEMS organisation, the banning of the annual Moomba pop
concert by the Trustees of the Myer Music Bowl, and Lily
Brett's report on "the new London rage", Jimi Hendrix.
3 Python
Lee Jackson, +Chelsea Set + Party Machine + Adderly Smith Blues
Band at Catcher.
4 The
Twilights make their Melbourne return at Blaise's.
Wild Cherries + Clefs + Mind Excursions + Chelsea Set at
Catcher
- The Rolling Stones reach #1 in the US charts with Ruby Tuesday.
5 Chelsea Set + Adderly Smith Blues
Band at Catcher.
7
Australian military adviser Major Peter Badcoe again displays exemplary
bravery and leadership during a battle in Phu Thu District, South Vietnam. At
approximately 6.45am the Sector Reaction Company is deployed to Quang
Dien Sub-sector to counter an attack by the Viet Cong on the
Headquarters. Major Badcoe leaves the Command group after their vehicle breaks down
and a US officer is killed; on reaching the company's District HQ, he personally
leads the company in an attack over open terrain to assault and capture
a heavily defended enemy position. In the face of almost certain death and heavy
losses among his men, his personal courage and leadership turns looming defeat
into victory and prevents the Vietcong forces from capturing the District
Headquarters. Major Badcoe had already displayed great heroism during an operation
on 23 February and did so again in an operation on
7 April. Badcoe is killed during the April 7 action.
8 Wild
Cherries at Sebastian.
9
Johnny Young headlines the 3CV Spectacular at the Capital Theatre,
Bendigo.
- Wild Cherries perform at Sebastian's.
- London police
raid the offices of underground paper International Times
(IT)
- a 'Mass Be-In' is held in Berkeley, California
10
Masters Apprentices + Max Merritt & The Meteors
at Box Hill Town Hall.
- in Amsterdam, members of the social protest movement known as
The
Dutch Provos manage to evade a massive cordon of some 25,000 police
and set off smoke-bombs as a protest during the wedding procession of
Princess Beatrix and her German husband (and former Hitler Youth member)
Claus von Amsberg. Although little known outside Holland, the Provos set
the stage for the creation of similar groups elsewhere including The Merry
Pranksters, The Diggers, and The Yippies. They were the first to combine
non-violence and absurd humour to stimulate social change, created the
first "Happenings" and "Be-Ins" and were the first group in the world to
actively campaign against marijuana prohibition; their activism led
directly top the establishment of Holland's liberal drug laws. The Provos
are also remembered for their famous "White Bicycle Plan", devised by
industrial designer Luud. Schimmelpenninck, which proposed the banning of
cars from the inner city, to be replaced by bicycles. The Provos put the
plan into action by providing the first fifty bicycles but the police
immediately confiscated them, claiming they created an invitation to
theft. The Provos' "White Victim Plan" proposed that anyone causing a
fatal car accident should be forced to paint the outline of their victim's
body on the pavement at the site of the accident. That way, no one could
ignore the fatalities caused by automobiles. Versions of this plan have
since been adopted by many police forces and traffic authorities around
the world, including the NSW RTA, who use such outlines to highlight
pedestrian accident black-spots in and around Sydney.
11 The
Loved Ones + Running Jumping Standing Still at Blaise's,
Melb.
- Pink Floyd's Arnold Layne is released
in the UK
12 Although
the Trustees of the Myer Music Bowl had initially declared
that they would not sanction this year's Moomba pop concert,
it goes ahead with headliners The Seekers performing before
a record audience of 200,000
- The Loved Ones + Wild Cherries + Chants
+ Chelsea Set + Adderly Smith Blues Band at Catcher (Melb).
- The Twilights + The Groop at Opus
(Melb)
- Indira Ghandi is re-elected as Prime Minister of India.
13 Record floods hit northern Queensland.
- students stage a 'sit-in' occupation at the London School of
Economics
14 Seven executives of Chemie Grünenthal,
the German pharmaceutical company that developed thalidomide, are charged
with putting on sale a drug which caused an unacceptable degree of bodily harm,
failure to tested the drug properly, falure to react to information on
side effects in due time, and attempting to suppress that information. The case
proceeds until December 1970, when the prosecutor
decides not to proceed in light of the April 1970 decision by Chemie Grünenthal to
make an out-of-court agreement to pay 100 million Marks into a trust fund for the
2,866 known victims in Germany.
First synthesised in 1953, Thalidomide went on the market in late 1957 and
was sold in about fifty countries as an treatment for insomnia and an anti-nausea
agent to combat morning sickness in pregnant women. It was made in Australia and the UK
by the drug division of the British beverage company Distillers Ltd, where it was sold under the
brand-name Distaval. In November 1961 Dr. Widukind Lenz, who had been studying an oubreak
of birth defects in Canadian children, contacted Chemie Grünenthal by phone and after ten days
of intensive discussions, the drug was taken off the market in West Germany. Then, on December 16
the scandal broke when the medical journal The Lancet published the landmark letter written by
Sydney gynaecologist Dr William McBride, ion which he made public his suspicion that
there was a link between thalidomide taken during pregnancy and birth defects in newborn children.
It was revealed that Thalidomide had powerful
teratogenic effects on the unborn, and that Chemie Grünenthal's pre-sale testing had been either
inadequately conducted or that their results had been faked. Subsequent research proved
that thalidomide caused severe developmental defects if taken even once during a critical
two-week window between Day 35 and Day 49 of pregnancy. Tens of thousands of children around
the globe were affected, suffering an horrendous range of malformations
including absence of the ears, deafness, defects of the muscles of the eye and face, absence
or hypoplasia of arms, thumbs with three joints, defects of the femur and of the tibia, and
malformations of the heart, bowel, uterus, and gallbladder. About 40 per cent of thalidomide
victims died before their first birthday. Significantly, the drug was never approved for sale
in the United States thanks to FDA analyst Frances Kelsey, who refused to pass the drug in 1960
without further undertaking testing. Her action, taken in the face of considerable pressure from
the American drug company William S. Merrell, undoubtedly prevented thousands of birth defects
in the USA.
16 Pink Floyd record Interstallar Overdrive
at Abbey Rd Studios, London.
17 Purple Haze, the debut single by
The Jimi Hendrix Experience, is released in the UK.
- The Honeysuckle Creek space tracking
station is opened near Canberra.
18 Go-Set's front
page story for the March 18 edition is "The Easybeats want to come home"
- The Beatles' Penny
Lane/Strawberry Fields reaches #1 in the US, although it
is kept out of the UK #1 position by Engelbert Humperdink's Please
Release Me
19 The
oil taker Torrey Canyon runs aground off Land's End and
spills a huge load of crude oil.
22 In Go-Set this week:
news that Normie Rowe is not coming home; the Easybeats are
to tour Germany with The Rolling Stones.
25 The
Doors' self-titled debut album is released in the US.
26 10,000 people
attend an Easter Sunday 'Be-In' in Central Park, New York, the first such
event to be held on the East Coast.
29 Go-Set reports on
hints from host Johnny Young that The Go!! Show may be cancelled
and Ronnie Burns being injured when mobbed by Sydney fans.
- France launches its first
nuclear submarine.
30 London
photographer Michael Cooper shoots the photos for the
epoch-making cover of The Beatles' forthcoming album Sgt Pepper's
Lonely Hearts Club Band in his London studio. The final bill
for the cover, designed by leading British 'pop' artist Peter
Blake, comes to a whopping £2,867.25s.3d -- more than
100 times the average cost for an album cover photo at the time.
31 George
Wheatley, 12-year-old son of Kevin "Dasher" Wheatley,
receives the VC awarded to his late father for bravery. Wheatley
was one of the first Australians killed in action in Vietnam.
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events
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1st
Penny Lane / Strawberry Fields Forever
The Beatles
8th
Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever
The Beatles
15th
Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever
The Beatles
22nd
Dedicated To the One I Love
The Mamas & The Papas
29th
Dedicated To the One I Love
The Mamas & The Papas
local releases
Who'll Be The One? / Saturday Night
The Easybeats
overseas releases
New York Mining Disaster, 1941
The Bee Gees
Hi Ho Silver Lining
Jeff Beck
Respect
Aretha Franklin
The Grateful Dead (LP)
The Grateful Dead
The Move
I Can Hear The Grass Grow
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Sir Henry Bolte is re-elected as Premier of Victoria in spite
of his unpopular hardline stance over the execution of Ronald Ryan in
February.
Melbourne band
Cam-Pact is formed.
The Easybeats begin a successful tour of Europe,
supporting The Rolling Stones.
Tony Worsley and Mike Furber perform at
the Sydney Royal Easter Show in a Sunshine Records tent show.
Suffering drug problems, and worn out by three years of constant
touring with The Fabulous Blue Jays, Worsley withdraws from performing
soon after, and does not return to the music scene until 1969.
Running Jumping Standing Still appear on The Go!! Show,
performing their hit Diddy Wah Diddy.
Bomber aircraft from No. 2 Squadron RAAF Canberra are deployed to
Phan Rang airbase in Vietnam. The squadron is withdrawn in March 1971.
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6 Making the headlines of this week's
Go-Set: The Easybeats' Friday On My Mind enters the US Cashbox chart
at #77 with a bullet; the Go!! Show will continue; a report that The Hollies tour
may be cancelled
6
Pink Floyd make their first appearance on the BBC's 'Top Of The
Pops', performing their debut single Arnold Layne
7 Australian
Army "adviser"
Major Peter Badcoe is killed
in action in Vietnam during an operation in Huong Tra District
with the 1st ARVN Division Reaction Company and some armoured personnel
carriers. During the move forward to an objective the company comes under
heavy small arms fire and withdraws to a cemetery for cover, leaving
Major Badcoe and his radio operator about fifty metres in front of the leading
elements, under heavy mortar fire. Major Badcoe runs back to the withdrawing
forces, moves amongst them and by encouragement and example gets them
moving forward again. He then sets out in front of the company to lead them on;
the company stops again under heavy fire but Major Badcoe continues on to
cover and prepares to throw grenades. When he rises to throw, his radio operator
pulls him down as heavy small arms fire is being brought to bear on them;
he later gets up again to throw a grenade and is struck and killed by a burst
of machine gun fire. Soon after, artillery support is called in and
the enemy position is assaulted and captured. Major Badcoe diplayed conspicuous
gallantry and leadership during this battle and on two previous operations on
23 Feburary and 7 March, and the ultimate success of each of these actions was
due entirely to his efforts. His valour and leadership were in the highest
traditions of the military profession and the Australian Regular Army. In
October 1967 he is posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross in recognition of
his heroism.
- The Grateful Dead release their self-titled
debut album
8 British
singer Sandie Shaw wins Eurovision Song Contest with 'Puppet
on a String'
- Hippies organise a 'Sweep-In' to clean up 3rd Street in New York's
East Village.
9 Svetlana Stalin, daughter of
the infamous Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, defects to the West.
10 This
Day Tonight premieres on ABC-TV. The new half-hour show (Australia's
first national nightly current affairs program) screens nightly
from Monday-Friday at 7:30pm, and is hosted by Bill Peach.
12
Australia's Roman Catholic bishops publicly
declare their opposition to the war in Vietnam.
- in this week's Go-Set: the headline story is the annoucement of
the forthcoming Australian tour by The Monkees, scheduled for January 1968.
- American author Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over The
Cuckoo's Nest, is arrested
in California on drug charges.
15 400,000 people march on the UN
headquarters in New York as part of the Spring Mobilisation Against the
Vietnam War
19 Go-Set reports that
Loved Ones members Gerry Humphries and Gavin Anderson have been arrested, charged,
convicted and fined £30 for stealing two blankets, two pillows and a lamp
stand from the Palace Hotel, Kalgoorlie, after a visit to Perth, and that the Perth
promoter has still not paid them the fee for their concerts there. It also reports
on the announcement of a forthcoming tour of the US by The Easybeats, Normie Rowe,
Lynne Randell and Gene Pitney.
19 In Go-Set this week:
- top British group The Animals
walk out of their second concert at
Melbourne Festival Hall, because drummer Barry Jenkins has been
left behind at the hotel and they refused to play without him,
that support group Dave, Dee, Dozy Beaky Mick & Tich had also walked off
during their performance because of technical problems and that the audience
was also "unhappy" with the previous night's concert.
- singer Lynne Randell breaks her
arm in a fall during a recording session at
CBS Studios in Hollywood and will reportedly sue CBS over her injury
27 Beach
Boy Carl Wilson is indicted for failing to report for
draft induction
28 The
opening of Expo
67, the Montreal World's Fair, coinciding with Canada's
100th anniversary of Confederation in 1867. Expo 67's one year
run draws 50 million visitors to an international exhibition
with over 90 foreign, provincial, industrial and "theme"
pavilions. Many were architectural showpieces (including the
US Pavilion, a groundbreaking geodesic dome designed by architect
R. Buckminster Fuller) and they attempt to entertain visitors
with movies, products, art, and propaganda. After the initial
1967 run, the Expo re-opens the following year, billed as "Man
& His World" and it runs annually each summer until
1981. Several buildings, including the USSR and Czech pavilions,
were removed immediately after Expo 67 closed, but most pavilions
stood until the mid-1980's, several years after the annual 'Man
and His World' summer exhibition ended in 1981. Sadly Fuller's
famous plastic-covered dome burned down in 1968, but the La Ronde
amusement park is still in operation and features many rides
and attractions including "Le Monstere" an enormous
racing roller coaster. The Expo site and its futuristic buildings
were also used as the location for Robert Altman's 1975 post-apocalyptic
thriller Quintet, starring Paul Newman and Nina Van Pallandt.
Australia's pavilion, on steel and concrete
pillars and featuring sloping walls of glass and aluminum, is
set in an garden of Australian trees, shrubs, flowers and a mob
of kangaroos. Inside, at its entrance, four large murals depict
the country's role in the 'Man and his World' story.
The exterior of the Australian
Pavilion at Expo 67
Visitors to the pavilion proceed by a spiral
ramp to the main hall exhibits on Australian achievements and
prospects. Large transparencies facing the ramp show typical
Australians at work and at play. There are also working models
of a large radio-telescope revolving beneath a panoramic Southern
sky, and one of the giant Snowy Mountains hydro-electric and
irrigation project. A spiral staircase to the art gallery upstairs,
leads past large transparencies of Australians at work and play.
Upstairs is a display of contemporary art and Aborigine bark
painting.
Interior, Australian Pavilion,
Expo 67
In addition to the Pavilion, Australia sends
a contingent of leading popular entertainers including Normie
Rowe, Rolf Harris and The Seekers to perform at Expo.
Their performances include an internationally-televised showcase concert
in June.
[Information and images courtesy Jeffrey Stanton ©1997]
29 A majority
vote "NO" in a referendum to create a new state
in northern New South Wales.
- a "Flower Power Day" is staged in New York, in which Abbie Hoffman
and 100 hippies infiltrate a 'Support Our Boys' March (officially Armed
Forces Day), displaying flowers instead of guns.
- The all-night "happening" The
Fourteen Hour Technicolour Dream is held at the Alexandra
Palace in London. Primarily an International Times benefit
gig, it attracts 10,000 people, becoming the largest UK underground
gathering to date. The show is headlined by Pink Floyd,
who perform at dawn. The star-studded bill also features Yoko
Ono, Alexis Korner, The Pretty Things, The Purple Gang, Champion
Jack Dupree, Graham Bond, Savoy Brown, The Flies, Ginger Johnson's
Drummers, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Soft Machine, The
Creation, Denny Lane, The Block, The Cat, Charlie Brown's Clowns,
Christopher Logue, Derek Brimstone, Dave Russell, Glo Macari
& The Big Three, Gary Farr, The Interference, Jacob's Ladder
Construction Company, Lincoln Folk Group, The Move, Mike Horovitz,
117, Poison Bellows, Pete Townshend, Robert Randall, Suzy Creamcheese,
Sam Gopal, Mick & Pete, Giant Sun Trolley, Social Deviants,
The Stalkers, Utterly Incredible Too Long Ago To Remember, Sometimes
Shouting At People, Barry Fantoni and Noel Murphy. Admission
is £1.
30 A 'Love-In' in Detroit ends in a riot. |
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events
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6th
Somethin'
Stupid
Nancy & Frank Sinatra
13th
Somethin' Stupid
Nancy & Frank Sinatra
20th
This Is My Song
Petula Clark / Harry Secombe
27th
This Is My Song
Petula Clark / Harry Secombe
local releases
My Aim Is To Please You / Bad Reputation
The Executives
Woman You're Breaking Me / Mad Over You
The Groop (CBS)
Hey Baby / Other Love
The La De Das
Buried & Dead / She's My Girl
The Masters Apprentices (Astor)
Western Union / Cool Jerk
The Strangers (Go!!)
Young Girl/Time & Motion Study Man
The Twilights (EMI)
overseas releases
When I Was Young
Eric Burdon & The Animals
Light My Fire
The Doors
The Wind Cries Mary, Are You Experienced? (LP)
The Jimi Hendrix Experience -
Carrie Ann
The Hollies
Live At The Kelvin Hall, Waterloo Sunset
The Kinks
I Was Made To Love Her
Stevie Wonder
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Ill-health forces the Masters Apprentices lead guitarist
Rick Morrison to leave
the band after he collapses on stage at a gig at Catcher in Melbourne.
Bassist Kim Lynch leaves
The Loved Ones
The La De Das
begin their first four-month visit
to Australia
The new lineup of Max Merritt
& The Meteors debuts with two gigs in Sydney, before
relocating to Melbourne. Aside from Max, the 'new' Meteors is
an entirely new band, with jazz drummer Stewie Speer,
saxophonist Bob Bertles and bassist John 'Yuk' Harrison.
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1 Australian health authorities begin
the first national anti-polio immunisation campaign using
the new Sabin oral vaccine developed by Dr Jonas Salk.
- Elvis Presley marries 16-year-old
Priscilla Beaulieu. Elvis met his future wife, the daughter
of a US Army officer, while on military service in Germany in
the early 60s.
- a "Legalise Pot" rally and 'Smoke-In' is held at Speakers Corner,
Hyde Park, London.
3 In Go-Set this week:
- Johnny Young is mobbed by fans at a concert at the Bunbury Railway
Institute Hall in Perth and suffers minor injuries after being twice dragged
from the stage
- The Easybeats' Friday On My Mind reaches #13 in the American pop charts
8 Boxer
Muhammad Ali is indicted for failing to report for his draft
induction, stripped of his title and his boxing license is rescinded.
Speaking to reporters, Ali famous quips "I ain't got no quarrel with them
Viet Congs"
9 London police raid the home of Rolling Stones guitarist
Brian Jones and arrest him for possession of cannabis.
10 In
London, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Robert
Frazer (photographer and owner of the Indica Gallery) are
committed for trial on drugs charges. Jagger is charged with
possession of amphetamines, Richards with allowing his home to
be used for the smoking of cannabis. The charges arise from a
raid on a party at Keith Richards' Sussex home in February. (<--
12/2/67). Jagger and Richards plead not guilty, but Frazer pleads
guilty to possession of heroin and is sentenced to six months'
prison.
- In Go-Set this week:
- Easybeats bassist Dick Diamonde collapses and is rushed to hospital after arriving at Sydney Airport
- Kim Lynch quits The Loved Ones
12 The
Jimi Hendrix Experience's debut album Are You Experienced?
is released in the UK.
- Pink Floyd present the landmark "Games
For May" show at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, featuring
the first use of quadraphonic sound in concert.
13
The Easybeats return to Australian from the UK
for a triumphant national tour. The group will later remember
this tour as the highpoint of their career.
14
The 'End of Provo' Happening in Vondelpark, Amsterdam, at which the
Dutch 'Provo' movement declares itself officially dead.
16
Liberal MP Edward St John calls for a new enquiry
into the Voyager disaster in his maiden speech
17 - In Go-Set this week:
- The Easybeats' wild return to Australia and Dick Diamonde's collapse on
the tarmac at Sydney airport.
19
The BBC bans the Beatles' track A Day In The Life,
(from the forthcoming Sgt Pepper LP) because of alleged drug
references.
20
Rev. Ted Noffs claims that drugs are present in about
60% of Australian schools and that the use of amphetamines and
LSD is on the rise amongst Australian youth, especially in Sydney
and Melbourne.
21
UBU Films present a program of Sydney Underground
Films at the Dendy Cinema, Melbourne. The films screened
include The Tribulations Of Mr Dupont Nomore, Blunderball,
Ding A Ding Day, The Spurt of Blood and Bluto.
UBU net nets $1000 from the screening.
- a 'Youth For Peace in Vietnam' rally is held in Trafalgar Square,
London.
23
Pink Floyd record See Emily Play at Sound
Techniques Studios, London
23-24
UBU present a Sydney Underground Cinema
program at the Canberra Playhouse.
24 - In Go-Set this week:
- The Bee Gees 'slam' the Aussie music scene.
25 John Lennon takes delivery of
his psychedelic Rolls Royce Phantom V. The car was originally purchased in 1965 but Lennon
tired of the matt black finish and took it to a Surry coachworks company,
J.P. Fallon Limited, who commissioned the Dutch design collective "The Fool" to
repaint the car in the style of a gypsy caravan. They designed and painted a
pattern of scrolls and flowers on the Phantom V at a cost of £2,000.
The car outraged one old woman in London’s downtown, who attacked it
with her umbrella, yelling: "You swine, you swine! How dare you do
this to a Rolls-Royce." The Fool
also created a number of other famous psychedelic designs including Eric Clapton's
legendary Gibson SG guitar (later owned by Todd
Rundgren), Jack Bruce's Fender VI bass, John Lennon's Gibson J160E acoustic guitar
(which he played in the 'All You Need Is Love' film clip) and his upright
piano, a fireplace design for George Harrison's house in Surrey and the famous mural on the outside
of the Beatles' Apple Boutique in Baker St, London, which would open on 5 December.
27
A record 90.8% of Australians
vote in favour of removing constitutional discrimination against
Aboriginal Australians in referendum.
- The
new 5-dollar note goes into circulation.
28
Round-the-world yachtsman Sir Francis Chichester
arrives home in Plymouth.
29 Harry
Chan MLC becomes the Mayor of Darwin, the first Australian
of Asian descent to hold such an office.
31
Oil is struck at the Kingfish well in Bass Strait.
- In Go-Set this week:
- Aussie stars blast Bee Gees
Johnny Young leaves for London
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events
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3rd
This Is My Song
Petula Clark / Harry Secombe
10th
This Is My Song
Petula Clark / Harry Secombe
17th
This Is My Song
Petula Clark / Harry Secombe
24th
This Is My Song
Petula Clark / Harry Secombe
local releases
Exit Stage Right / In The Morning
Ronnie Burns
Heaven & Hell/Pretty Girl
The Easybeats
All Purpose Low / My Girl
The La De Das
Krome Plated Yabbie/Everything I Do Is
Wrong
The Wild Cherries
overseas releases
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
The Beatles
To Love Somebody
The Bee Gees
Strange Brew / Tales of Brave Ulysses
Cream
Evolution
The Hollies
White Rabbit
Jefferson Airplane
Something Else
The Kinks
Moby Grape
Moby Grape
Here Comes The Nice, From The Beginning (LP)
The Small Faces
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Easybeats
drummer Snowy Fleet leaves the band
at the conclusion of their Australian tour. The group return
to London
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1
Don Dunstan succeeds Frank Walsh as Premier of South Australia.
- Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
is released in the UK
- The Times prints an advertisement, signed
by leading members of the American intelligentsia, protesting against
America's military involvement in Vietnam
- John 'Hoppy' Hopkins, British counter-cultural impresario,
is jailed for nine months on drugs charges.
2
Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is released in the USA
- The drugs trials of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards begin
at at the West Sussex Assizes in Lewes. Police conduct during
the trial outrages many commentators, with the two musicians
being held in custody and escorted to and from the court in handcuffs.
- The Shah of Iran pays an official
visit to Berlin, prompting students take to the streets to protest
against his repressive regime. In the early evening thousands of demonstrators
line up behind police barricades across the street from the Berlin Opera
House where the Shah is to attend a performance. A few
throw paint-filled balloons, but the Shah slips into the Opera
House without even noticing them. But as the demonstrators disperse,
Berlin police pounce on them, using a new technique that they
have developed for terrorizing crowds, dubbed "The Liver-Sausage
Method." The crowd of demonstrators is forced into a long,
tight "sausage" formation on the footpath between the
barricades and buildings. The police then form a wedge, rush
the middle of the "sausage" and the demonstrators naturally
rush out at either end -- and into the flailing truncheons of
hundreds more waiting police, and pandemonium ensues. Believing
him to be a ringleader, police grab one young protester Benno
Ohnesorg, who is in fact attending his first protest. Detective
Sgt. Karl-Heinz Kurras points his gun at Ohnesorg's head and
it goes off (possibly accidentally); Ohnesorg is fatally wounded
and dies within minutes. After his death, stunned protesters
gather at the office of the SDS, a prominent student organization.
Among them is radical activist Gudrun Ensslin, soon to
become a key member of the infamous Baader-Meinhof terrorist
gang. Inside the SDS office Ensslin screams: "This fascist
state means to kill us all! We must organize resistance. Violence
is the only way to answer violence. This is the Auschwitz Generation,
and there's no arguing with them!" Ohnesorg's death becomes a pivotal
factor in the formation of extreme left-wing resistance to the German
government, leading to the formation of the notorious Baader-Meinhof
terrorist group.
3 In the
wake of Benno Ohnesorg's death at the hands of police,
all protest signs and banners are banned on the streets of Berlin,
but student activist Peter Homann, comes up with an ingenious
stunt to circumvent the ban. Eight people dress up in t-shirts,
each with a single large letter painted on the front and back.
Alone, the t-shirts are innocuous, but when lined up side-by-side,
the shirt fronts spell out A-L-B-E-R-T-Z-! -- referring to Berlin
Mayor Heinrich Albertz -- and when the group turns around in unison,
the backs read A-B-T-R-E-T-E-N -- "resign." Photos appear across West Germany the
next day, but despite Homann's ingenuity, all eight protesters
are arrested.
Berlin students demontrate
against the death of protestor Benno Ohnesorg.
On the far left, with the giant exclamation point on her chest,
is future
Baader-Meinhof Gang member Gudrun Ensslin.
5 The
Six Day War begin in the Middle East. Suspecting an imminent
attack, Israel counters an Arab military buildup with a stunning
surprise attack on Egypt and her allies. Israeli forces gain
the upper hand within hours; catching them on the ground, Israeli
planes virtually obliterate the entire Egyptian air force.
- Moby Grape's self-titled debut album is
released in the USA
7 In Go-Set this week:
- 'The truth about discos'
- Johnny Young's wild farewell
8 Although
fighting continues for another few days, the outcome of the Six
Day War has been largely decided. Israel smashes Arab resistance,
destroying 80% of Egypt's military materiel, and taking control
of huge areas of formerly Egyptian and Syrian-controlled territory,
including the Arab sections of Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Golan
Heights, the entire Sinai Peninsula and the east bank of the
Suez Canal.
- Procol Harum's A Whiter Shade Of Pale
reaches #1 in the UK
9 Jefferson
Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow reaches #3 in the USA
10 Jeff St
John plays his final show with backing band The Id
at the Here Disco
in North Sydney.
12 Radical New
York Hippies and San Francisco Diggers invade the New
Left SDS 'Drawing Boards' Conference
14 An
advertisment supporting the USA involvement in Vietnam appears
in The Times as a counter to the June 1 anti-war advert.
In Go-Set this week:
- Normie Rowe 'going steady' with Pat Carroll
- Frank Traynor writes on jazz
- 'Are discos as bad as some say?'
16-18
The epochal
Monterey Pop Festival is held in California.
The first true rock festival and the focal point of the "Summer
Of Love", it showcases the cream of American rock, soul,
pop and psychedelic groups, plus leading international acts.
The star-studded bill includes The Association, Booker T. &
The MGs, Buffalo Springfield, Eric Burdon and the New Animals,
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, The Byrds, Canned Heat, Country
Joe & The Fish, The Electric Flag, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson
Airplane, Scott Mackenzie, The Mamas and The Papas, Hugh Masakela,
The Steve Miller Blues Band, Moby Grape, Laura Nyro, Quicksilver
Messenger Service, Otis Redding, Johnny Rivers, Simon & Garfunkel
and The Who. The Festival also launches the careers of Janis
Joplin (with Big Brother & The Holding Company), The
Jimi Hendrix Experience, (who is introduced by Rolling Stone
Brian Jones) and features the first major western concert
performance by Indian classical sitarist Ravi Shankar.
The Board of Governors is a 'Who's Who' of interntaional rock
music, including Lou Adler, Donovan, Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney,
Roger McGuinn, Terry Melcher, Andrew Oldham, John Phillips, Smokey
Robinson and Brian Wilson. The only major no-show is The Beach
Boys, who are forced to pull out because of the problems
stemming from Carl Wilson's draft resistance.
16
The cover of LIFE magazine features papier-mache caricature of
The Beatles by British cartoonist Gerald Scarfe.
- Paul McCartney appears on a BBC-TV interview,
talking about drugs and his admission earlier in the year that
he had taken the hallucinogen LSD.
- Pink Floyd's second single See Emily
Play is released in the UK
17 China explodes its first
hydrogen bomb at the remote Lop Nur testing ground in Mongolia. 21 In Go-Set this week:
- Snowy Fleet leaves the Easybeats
24 On
their way to a gig in Morwell, Victoria, a van carrying Max Merritt
& The Meteors collides head-on with a truck just outside
the town of Bunyip, 90 miles south east of Melbourne. Only bassist
John 'Yuk' Harrison, who had been sitting in the back with the
equipment, escapes unhurt. Saxophonist Bob Birtles, singer/guitarist
Max Merritt and drummer Stewie Speer are all trapped in the
front of the wrecked van and it takes firemen more than an hour
to free them. Max sustains severe head injuries, Bob's leg is
badly broken, and Stewie suffers multiple serious injuries --
his legs are crushed, both arms are broken and he loses the tips
of several fingers, resulting a four-month hospital stay and
a long and painful rehabilitation. It will take the better part
of a year for the group to recover from the accident. As a result
of his injuries, Max loses his right eye and his face is badly
scarred. Bob is left with a permanent limp, and Stewie never
regains full mobility.
25 The
ABC participates in the historic Our World broadcast,
a 22-nation satellite link-up broadcast to an estimated 150,000,000
viewers. The worldwide hookup includes the famous live broadcast
of The Beatles' new single, All You Need Is Love, live
from Abbey Rd Studios in London.
- Sydney's gang wars escalate with the murder of
leading underworld figure Richard Gabriel Reilly. The notorious
gunman, standover man and Kings Cross baccarat operator
is ambushed outside his mistress's flat in Manning Rd, Double Bay as he
approaches his $17,000 Maserati sports car around 7.30pm. He is first
shot in the left side with a shotgun, but most of the charge misses him.
Reilly tries to escape in his car but as he reverses onto the roadway
a second shot from a high-powered sporting rifle strikes him in the neck,
severing his carotid artery and lodging in his larynx. Mortally
wounded, Reilly attempts to drive off, but a third shot hits him in
the shoulder. He manages to turn into nearby New South Head Rd and heads
up the hill towards the city but gets only 100 metres before collapsing.
His car stops, rolls backwards down the slope and crashes through the
front of a ladies' wear store, Aginian's Gift Shop. Among Reilly's effects
police subsequently discover four notebooks which contain the names
and phone numbers of hundreds of contacts, including politicians,
businessmen, police, media personalities and other crime figures. But
their potentially explosive contents are suppressed by corrupt Police
Commissioner Norman Allan and Premier Robert Askin, both of whom, it is
later claimed, were receiving huge payoffs from organised crime.
- Muhammed Ali is sentenced to five years in prison
for refusing to comply with his conscription order.
27 Mick
Jagger and Keith Richards are found guilty of drugs
charges.
28 In Go-Set this week:
Paul McCartney speaks out about drugs; Sydney band Jeff St John splits
from his band The Id; Jeff played his final gig with them on June
10 at the Here Disco in North Sydney. Go-Set reports that The Id (led
by former Missing Links guitarist Peter Anson) will remain together and
that Jeff will put together a new backing group.
29 Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are sentenced. They receive to three
and twelve months' gaol respectively (with hard labour), despite
being first offences. The severity of the sentences causes a
major public outcry.
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| #1 singles |
events
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1st
A
Whiter Shade Of Pale
Procol Harum
8th
A Whiter Shade Of Pale
Procol Harum
15th
A Whiter Shade Of Pale
Procol Harum
22nd
All You Need Is Love
The Beatles
29th
All You Need Is Love
The Beatles
local releases
Seven Days Of Rain / Two Of A Kind
The Allusions
Heaven and Hell / Pretty Girl
(UK)
The Easybeats
Good Friday
(UK/US) LP
The Easybeats
Sally Go Round The Roses / Hey Gyp (Dig
The Slowness)
The Questions
overeas releases
Heroes And Villains
The Beach Boys
All You Need Is Love
The Beatles
Cold Sweat
James Brown
Death Of A Clown
Dave Davies
Baby I Love You
Aretha Franklin
5000 Spirits or the Layers Of The Onion
Incredible String Band
Back To Back
The Mar-Keys & Booker T. & The MG's -
Creeque Alley
The Mamas & The Papas
Brown Eyed Girl
Van Morrison
Live In Europe
Otis Redding
Small Faces (first Immediate LP)
The Small Faces
Reflections
The Supremes
Little Games
The Yardbirds
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The Groop win the Hoadley National Battle
of the Sounds. Runners-up are Adelaide's The Masters Apprentices.
Tony Cahill
, former drummer with The Purple
Hearts, is chosen as the replacement for The Easybeats' Snowy
Fleet.
The postcode system
is introduced throughout Australia.
New Australian content
regulations for television come into force.
UK journalist and artist Caroline Coon
founds RELEASE, an organisation to help people dependent upon
or busted for drugs
Dr Martin Luther King Jr publishes Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos
or Community?
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1 In the
wake of the Rolling Stones' drug convictions, The
Times publishes its famous leader, entitled (after Alexander Pope)
"Who Breaks A Butterfly On A Wheel?". Personally written
by Times editor William Rees-Mogg, the thousand-word editorial is sharply
critical of the fact that the two pop stars have been sentenced to prison
with hard labour for a first offence, on a relatively minor
drugs charge, and observes that Jagger and Richards
have evidently been treated far more harshly than "any purely
anonymous young man".
- Time magazine runs a cover story
entitled "The Hippies: Anatomy of a Sub-Culture"
5 The
spy drama series Hunter premieres on the Seven Network
7 The
Beatles' All You Need Is Love is released in Britain
8 John
Newcombe wins the Wimbledon men's singles final
12 A new Australian TV
drama series You Can't See Round Corners starring
Ken Shorter and Rowena Wallace premieres. The opening episode
causes a sensation because of a love scene in which Shorter
runs his hand up Wallace's thigh.
- twenty-six people are killed and 1500 injured in
race riots in Newark, New Jersey
- In Go-Set this week:
- special Monterey Pop Festival issue
- Normie Rowe returns to Australia
16 Sydney
'underground' film collective UBU stage their first public
lightshow during program of Australian underground film at the
Union Theatre, Sydney University.
- 10,000 people attend a 'Legalise Pot' rally at Speakers'
Corner in Hyde Park, London
17 Legendary US jazz saxophonist John Coltrane
dies of a heart attack
18 A second
royal commission into the the 1964 Voyager disaster opens.
19 The
Beatles' All You Need Is Love reaches #1 in Britain
- In Go-Set this week: 'Beatles vs. Monkees'
23-27
44 people are killed, 2000 are injured and 5000 made homeless
in America's worst-ever race riots in Detroit, Michigan
24 The
London Times carries a full-page advertisement placed by SOMA (The
Society for Mental Awareness) calling
for the legalisation of marijuana. The accompanying petition
is signed by many leading figures including two MPs, author Graham
Greene, The Beatles and Brian Epstein.
26 In Go-Set this week:
The Groop wins the Hoadleys Battle Of The Sounds
27 Homosexuality
between consenting adults in private is legalised in the UK
28 Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
are released from prison after a hearing before the Lord Chief Justice.
29 UBU
projects films during a benefit for members of The Id,
who have been busted for possession of pot.
- The Doors' Light My Fire reaches
#1 in the USA
30 The
La Mama theatre opens in Carlton, Melbourne.
The theatre, an initiative of Betty Burstall, was inspired
by the "off off Broadway theatres" in New York. Betty
and her husband, film maker Tim Burstall, had just returned
from a trip to New York and wanted to re-create the vibrancy
and immediacy of the small theatres there. La Mama was modelled
after a New York venue of the same name. At a time when the production
of Australian plays was almost non-existent (and financially
risky), La Mama's non-profit organisation allowed experimental
Australian works a space for airing. The first play performed
at La Mama was a work by a new Australian writer Jack Hibberd,
entitled Three Old Friends. The production of Australian
works at La Mama soon became a staple, and within the first two
years of its life 25 new Australian plays had premiered there.
La Mama also nurtured new works by composers, poets, and filmmakers.
The opening of the alternative theatre provided a home base for
many important figures in theatre and film including Hibberd
and Alex Buzo, It was also regularly used by underground performance
troupe Tribe (who later collaborated with Spectrum), and
the house troupe, the La Mama Group, established by actor-director
Greame Blundell, which eventually became the Australian Performing
Group. La Mama's foundation marked the beginning of a small cultural
revolution that would inspire the re-birth of a national theatre.
La Mama also fostered a pool of talent that would flow on into
Australian cinema, regularly screening new works by film-makers
Bryan Davies, Nigel Buesst, John Carnody, Bert Dehling and John
Duigan. [William Head, 1999]
- US envoys Clark Clifford and Maxwell Taylor meet senior Australian
ministers and officials. They argue strongly that Australia should send another
battalion to Vietnam.
31 Mick
Jagger and Keith Richards successfully appeal their
drug convictions. Richards' conviction is quashed; Jagger's sentence
is quashed and his conviction is conditionally discharged. After
the hearing, in the afternoon, Jagger is flown by helicopter
to a secret rendezvous to record a special edition of the Granada
TV program "World In Action" which also features Times
editor William Rees Mogg.
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events
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5th All
You Need Is Love
The Beatles
12th
All You Need Is Love
The Beatles
19th
Up, Up And Away
The Fifth Dimension
26th
Up, Up And Away
The Fifth Dimension
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The 0-10 Network axes both of its popular music programs
The Go!! Show and
Kommotion
Mick Bower, guitarist and songwriter for The Masters Apprentices,
suffers a nervous breakdown during a tour of Tasmania and is forced to leave the
group.
The La De Das make their first two-week trip to
Melbourne for gigs at Catcher, Berties and Thumpin' Tum.
The Easybeats
begin their first American tour,
supporting Gene Pitney and the Buckinghams.
Major overseas releases:
The Beach Boys - Heroes & Villains
Aretha Franklin - Aretha Arrives
The Small Faces - Itchycoo Park
The Rolling Stones - We Love You
Jimi Hendrix Experience - The Burning Of The Midnight Lamp
Stevie Wonder - I Was Made To Love Her
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2 The
premiere of ABC-TV's new drama serial Bellbird. Originally
shown in 15-minute episodes on Monday-Thursday, just before the
main 7pm new bulletin, the series is set in a fictional country
town in Victoria (although the opening credit shots are actually
the town of Daylesford). "Bellbird" soon picks up a
huge and dedicated following and wins a swag of awards over the
next few years. By 1969 it has become the most popular drama
series in Australian TV history, with an estimated nightly audience
of 1.2 million viewers (around 10% of the Australian population).
5 Pink
Floyd release their debut LP The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
6 "The
Explosion Factory" a multimedia event, is staged at East
Sydney Technical College, with music by The Id and films
by UBU
8 George
and Patti Harrison visit San Francisco and walk through the Haight-Ashbury
district.
9 Scott McKenzie scores a UK #1 hit with the song San Francisco (Be
Sure You Wear Flowers in Your Hair), written for him by Mamas & Papas
leader John Phillips.
14 Pirate
radio stations broadcasting into Britain from international
waters, including the famous Radio London, are closed down after
the declaration of the UK Marine Broadcasting Act
16 In Go-Set this week:
- Colin Beard reports in words and photos on The US west coast hippie scene
18 The
Rolling Stones release the single We Love You. The
song makes a clear comment on their current legal problems (stemming
from their February drug bust) by opening with a sound-effect
of a slamming prison-cell door; the recording features members of the Beatles
on backing vocals.
19 The Beatles' All You Need Is Love
reaches #1 in the USA
19 In Go-Set this week:
- Jimi Hendrix
- Johnny Young's English success
- Glenn Shorrock talks about LSD
- the Go!! Show is axed
24 The
Beatles meet Maharishi Mahesh Yogi for the first time
at London's Hilton Hotel
- the legendary hippie assault on the New York Stock Exchange, led by
Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. During the protest, dollar bills are thrown
onto the trading floor, creating havoc; later more bills are torn and
burned.
25 The
Beatles attend a Transcendental Meditation seminar at Bangor,
Wales conducted by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
26
The music world is rocked by the news that Beatles
manager Brian Epstein has been found dead at his flat in London
from an apparent overdose of sleeping tablets.
30 In Go-Set this week:
- Channel 0 axes Kommotion
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| new releases
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|
We Had A Good Thing Going / Can't You Feel?
Ronnie Burns
Sit Down I Think I Love You / Don't You
Sometimes, Baby
The Executives
I'm So Glad / It's Too Late
Mike Furber
Magic Eyes / And I Heard The Fire Song
James Taylor Move
All Purpose Low / My Girl
The La De Das
Love Song / Magic Box
The Loved Ones
Living In A Child's Dream/Tired Of Just Wandering
The Masters Apprentices
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|
|
| #1 singles |
events
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|
2nd
Up, Up And Away
The Fifth Dimension
9th
The Monkees (Vol.1 EP)
The Monkees
16th
The Monkees (Vol.1 EP)
The Monkees
23rd
Itchycoo Park
The Small Faces
30th
Itchycoo Park
The Small Faces
|
|
The Las Da Das return to New Zealand.
Johnny Farnham
signs a solo contract with EMI
The Bee Gees' second international single, Massachusetts,
becomes a worldwide smash hit, selling over five million copies.
HMAS Perth is hit by NLF shore batteries while
pursuing enemy patrol boats off the coast of South Vietnam.
Graham Kennedy's book Graham Kennedy's Melbourne
is published.
Major overseas releases:
The Beach Boys - Smiley Smile
The Bee Gees - Massachusetts
The Box Tops - The Letter
James Brown - Cold Sweat
Tim Buckley - Goodbye And Hello
Aretha Franklin - (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman
The Hollies - King Midas In Reverse
The Kinks - Something Else
The Move - Flowers In The Rain
|
1
The Commonwealth Trade Practices
Act comes into force.
3 A Pro-LSD
demonstration is held at Speakers Corner, Hyde Park,
London.
- Traffic switches to the right in Sweden
4 "AM",
a new half-hour morning current affairs magazine, premieres at
8am on ABC Radio 2. The original on-air team is host Robert
Peach (cousin of TDT's Bill Peach) and reporters Paul
Murphy, Richard Carleton and Allan Hogan. John
Highfield joins in 1968.
6 In Go-Set this week:
- Lynne Randell romantically linked with Monkee Davy Jones
- Mama Cass 'took LSD'
- What to say to parents who say 'pop is trash'
- A 'Death
of Hippie' ceremony is held in San Francisco as an act of
defiance against the media hyping of the hippies and growing
overcrowding and youth poverty in the Haight-Ashbury district.
8 Police
clash with around 3,500 students and others during wild demonstrations
in Brisbane. They are protesting against the Queensland government's
restrictions on rights to public meetings. 114 people
are arrested.
9 The
federal government sets up an Office of Aboriginal Affairs
13 In Go-Set this week:
'Are you a hippy?'
16 The
North West Cape naval communications station is officially commissioned.
- South Sydney defeat Canterbury-Bankstown
in the NSW Rugby League Grand Final
17 PM
Harold Holt announces an increase in military support to South
Vietnam
20 In Go-Set this week:
- Normie Rowe called up for National Service
22
Contrabandits, a new drama series about Customs & Excise police,
premieres on ABC-TV
- TIME magazine's cover story is
"The Beatles: Their New Incarnation". The cover photo
features specially-commissioned papier-mache caricature sculptures created
by British artist and cartoonist Gerald Scarfe.
23 Richmond
beats Geelong in the VFL Grand Final
24 Traffic, the new group featuring
former Spencer Davis group lead singer Steve Winwood,
give their first public performance at 'Sunday At The Saville',
at the Saville Theatre, London.
27 In Go-Set this week:
Johnny Young and Lily Brett back from London
- Normie Rowe talks about his future
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| new releases
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Simon Says / With This Ring
The Groove
Rosalie / Find Us A Way
The La De Das
Heat Wave / When I Come Home
Somebody's Image
Dream Baby / You Don't Live Twice
Billy Thorpe
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|
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| #1 singles |
events
|
|
7th
Itchycoo Park
The Small Faces
14th
Itchycoo Park
The Small Faces
21st
The Last Waltz
Engelbert Humperdinck
28th
The Last Waltz
Engelbert Humperdinck
|
|
The Holt government comes under fire in the Senate
over allegations about the misuse of VIP aircraft by
members of the federal cabinet.
The Loved Ones break up
British comedian Tony Hancock
gives a controversial performance at Melbourne's Dendy Theatre.
He falls several time during his performance, and eventually
leaves the stage to jeers, catcalls and audience walkouts. Hancock's
psychological problems eventually lead to his suicide in Sydney
in June 1968.
Major overseas releases:
The Beach Boys - Wild
Honey
Eric Burdon & The Animals - San Franciscan Nights
The Doors - Strange Days
Donovan - There Is A Mountain
The Hollies - Butterfly
The Kinks - Autumn Almanac
|
2 Leading
American psychedelic rock group The Grateful Dead are charged
with drug posession after a police raid on their communal house in Ashbury St,
San Francsico.
3
A rocket-powered NASA X-15 hypersonic aircraft sets the absolute world air speed record
for a winged aircraft, reaching 7297 kmh (4,520 mph), or Mach 6.72
4 The first US servicemen arrive in
Melbourne from Vietnam for "Rest and Recreation"
(R&R) leave. The visiting Americans create a minor economic
boom - especially in "red light" areas like Sydney's
Kings Cross - but over the next few years, the R&R circuit
also becomes a pipeline for the importation of heroin and other
hard drugs into Australia's capital cities, and lays the foundations
for the massive Asian-Australian drug trade of the 70s and beyond.
- In Go-Set this week:
- The Easybeats
- A day in the life of Yvonne (Barrett) and Marcia (Jones)
- win a blind date with Stan Rofe
6 The
"Death of Hippie" procession in San Francisco coincides with
the closure of the Thelin brothers' legendary Psychedelic Shop on Haight
St. The events coincide with the first anniversary of the illegalisation
of LSD in the USA.
8 Cuban
revolutionary Che Guevara is killed in Paraguay.
9 The
first edition of Rolling Stone is published in the USA.
11 British
PM Harold Wilson issues a writ against pop group The
Move, alleging defamation. The case arises from a promotional
postcard for their single Flowers In The Rain, which featured
a cartoon depicting Wilson in bed with his mistress. The promotional
stunt, masterminded by Move manager Tony Secunda, backfires drastically
- In Go-Set this week:
- Normie and the Army
14 The
Masters Apprentices play at a free outdoor concert in Hyde
Park, Sydney, as part of the Waratah Spring Festival. Attended
by an estimated 50,000 frantic fans, the concert quickly degenerates
into a near riot, forcing police to stop the performance after
only a few songs, when the surging crowd threatens to demolish
the makeshift stage. As the band is hustled away one of the two
limos hired to carry them is overturned and wrecked; the band
barely escapes in the second car. That evening, they headline
at the UNSW "Living In A Child's Dream" Ball held
in subruban Ashfield. The ball's organisers include UNSW architecture
students and future film and stage identites Matt Carroll, Jim Sharman
and Brian Thompson.
15 Major
Peter Badcoe is awarded a posthumous VC for bravery.
18 In Go-Set this week:
- The Loved Ones split
- UpTight premieres
19 Musician
Joan Baez and 122 others are arrested at an anti-draft protest
in California. Governor Reagan commends the police for their
actions
- 'The Fool's Ball' at Moorabbin Town Hall, featuring The Groop and The Groove
($7 double)
20 Seven members
of the Ku Klux Klan including "Imperial Wizard" Sam Bowers and
Neshoba County Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price are convicted on federal conspiracy
charges relating to the June 1964 slayings
of three young civil rights activists, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael
Schwerner. During the 11-day trial there are repeated attempts to attempts
influence, tamper with or threaten jury members. However Klan kingpin Edgar Ray
"Preacher" Killen, the man suspected
of masterminding the murders, walks free because one of the jurors holds out for a
not-guilty verdict. Years later other jurors reveal that it was simply because she
"couldn't convict a preacher". The FBI had been forced to charge the suspects
with federal conpiracy offences after the racist Mississippi State authorities
failed to proceed with murder charges against them. None of the twelve men
suspected of being involved in the killings has ever been charged with murder.
21
Anti-Vietnam
marches are held in America and Europe, including the famous 'exorcism'
of The Pentagon in Washington D.C. Author Norman Mailer
is among those arrested at the Washington protest, and his
subsequent book The Armies of the Night
(1968) is a 'novelisation' of the event. The event also produces
the iconic photos and film footage of demonstrators placing flowers
in the barrels of the rifles of soldiers guarding The Pentagon.
25 In Go-Set this week:
- Normie and The Playboys split
27 A new pop
show UPTIGHT, hosted by Ross D. Wyllie, premieres on the
0-10 Network.
29 Leading
Australian fashion designer Prue Acton
leaves Australia for New York where she is to show her new collection.
31
Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones appears in court in London on
charges of possession of cannabis, stemming from a raid on his home in
May. Fans and supporters demonstrate outside the court
during the hearing.
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| new releases
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|
If You Need Me / Bring Your Love Back Home
Mike Furber
Baby Jane / Still I Can Go On
James Taylor Move
Reaching Out / Do You Mind
Tony Worsley & The Fabulous Blue
Jays
And Things Unsaid / I Can't Hear You
The Questions
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|
|
| #1 singles
|
events
|
|
4th The
Last Waltz
Engelbert Humperdinck
11th
The Last Waltz
Engelbert Humperdinck
18th
The Last Waltz
Engelbert Humperdinck
25th
The Last Waltz
Engelbert Humperdinck
new local releases
The Music Goes Round My Head / Come in You'll Get Pneumonia
The Easybeats
Sadie, The Cleaning Lady
Johnny Farnham
Hush / It's All Over Now Baby Blue
Somebody's Image
Cathy Come Home / The Way They Play
The Twilights
That's Life / Try Me
The Wild Cherries
overseas releases
Hello, Goodbye/I Am The Walrus,
Magical Mystery Tour (EP)
The Beatles
Neon Rainbow
The Box Tops
Disraeli Gears
Cream
Chain Of Fools
Aretha Franklin
She's A Rainbow, Their Satanic Majesties Request
(LP)
The Rolling Stones
The Who Sell Out
The Who
|
The Holt government suffers a serious reversal in the Senate elections,
winning just 43.3 per cent of the vote against Labor's 47 per cent.
PM Harold Holt establishes the Australian Council for The Arts.
The Australian Task Force in Vietnam is increased to 3 battalions and
a squadron of Centurion tanks.
The Loved Ones break up.
In Los Angeles, singer-songwriter
Tim Buckley films the first live performance of his classic
Song To The Siren for an episode of "The Monkees" TV show. The episode,
"The Frodis Caper" airs on 25 March 1968 in the U.S.
3
Red Handed
wins the Melbourne Cup
8 In Go-Set this week:
- special Monkees issue
11 NASA
successfully launches the unmanned Apollo 4. The mission
is the first flight of the complete Saturn V booster and the
first use of Launch Complex 39-A, which in 1969 is used to launch
Apollo 11.
14 The
Beatles release Hello Goodbye in the UK
15 Pink
Floyd and The Jimi Hendrix Experience begin a joint
tour of the UK
- In Go-Set this week:
- Procession
- The Questions
- The Cherokees
- The Monkees
20 Australia
breaks another historical tie with Great Britain when the Reserve
Bank decides not to follow the British decision to devalue the
pound by 14.3 percent.
22 In Go-Set this week:
- The Twilights TV show
29 Australia's
first satellite, WRESAT 1, is launched from the Woomera
rocket range in South Australia, making Australia only the fourth
nation to build and successfully launch its own orbital satellite.
- In Go-Set this week:
- Lynne Randell
- The Beatles
- The Monkees
- The Easybeats
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|
|
| #1 singles
|
events
|
|
2nd
The Last Waltz
Engelbert Humperdinck
9th
The Last Waltz
Engelbert Humperdinck
16th
Snoopy's Christmas
The Royal Guardsmen
23rd
Snoopy's Christmas
The Royal Guardsmen
30th
Snoopy's Christmas
The Royal Guardsmen
new overseas releases
Wild Honey, Darlin'
The Beach Boys
Magical Mystery Tour (double EP)
The Beatles
The Ballad Of Bonnie & Clyde
Georgie Fame
Axis: Bold As Love
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
|
|
The Easybeats are voted Top Group in the second
annual Go-Set Pop Poll.
Procession make their live debut in Melbourne,
and record an Uptight TV special
IMT star Graham Kennedy signs a new two-year
deal with Melbourne TV station GTV-9, including a salary
estimated to be at least $70,000 a year (at least $500,000
in today's figures). Nine Network owner Sir Frank Packer
(a notorious homophobe who privately loathes Kennedy)
tells the media: "Of course I'm not happy paying a sum
like that, but Graham Kennedy's a very valuable property
and he's worth it." The full value of the contract is
estimated at $250,000 and includes an extended lease on
a penthouse suite at Melbourne's Southern Cross Hotel, a
special studio dressing room, and assistance with the
maintenance of Kennedy's farm at Langwarry in Gippsland
and his house in Frankston.
Rainbow II wins the Sydney to Hobart yacht race
San Francisco-based sound engineer and underground LSD
chemist Augustus Owsley Stanley III is arrested in
Orinda, California. Owsley is caught in possession of 217
grams of LSD, equivalent to about 800,000 doses and worth an
estimated US$4.3 million. In spite of the massive quantity
of LSD involved, when the case comes to trial two years later,
Owsley's lawyer argues that that it was for personal use.
Owsley is eventually sentenced to three years' prison and
fined $3000. Owsley's extraordinarily light sentence is in stark
contrast to the treatment of LSD evangelist Timothy Leary. When
he is arrested in 1969 for possession of only a few grams of
marijuana, he is sentenced to 20 years in prison.
|
2 The
still-recuperating Max Merritt & The Meteors play
their comeback show at Berties disco in Melbourne. It is their
first gig since the near-fatal crash in July that seriously injured
three of the band's four members, and their only gig in the second
half of the year.
- The Monkees score a US #1 hit with Daydream Believer
3 Dr Christian
Barnard performs the world's first heart transplant in
South Africa.
5 The Beatles' Apple Boutique
opens at 94 Baker St, London. The shop is generously stocked with fashions and
records. The Beatles gave the design collective
called the "Fool" £100,000 to set up the store and create the clothing, and they
also designed the brilliantly coloured psychedelic mural on the building's extrerior,
which featured planets, clouds, rainbows and mystic symbols. The store closed after
just over six months in business, on 30 July 1968. The extravagant mural proved very
unpopular with local residents and was removed as soon as the Boutique closed.
6 The Beatles' Hello Goodbye reaches #1 in the UK
- In Go-Set this week:
- 'Bee Gees sensation'
9 Nicolae Ceausescu becomes prime minister
of Romania. His autocratic rule was marked by frequently disastrous economic schemes
and became increasingly repressive and corrupt, but Ceausescu remains in power with
Soviet support until the fall of Communism in the late 1980s. He is finally deposed
in December 1989 when a popular uprising, joined by the army, leads to the arrest, trial
and execution of both Ceausescu and his despised wife, Elena.
11 The
ABC premieres its new children's TV series, Adventure Island.
12 A large hippie camp in Kathmandu is broken
up by Nepalese police
15 Pink
Floyd play at the newly opened London psychedelic club, The
Middle Earth
- 1000 international hippies declare a 'Hippy Republic' in Costa Rica
16 The Digger Free Store opens in
New York City.
17 Australian
Prime Minister Harold Holt, 59, disappears and is presumed
drowned while swimming in heavy seas at Cheviot Beach, near Portsea in
Victoria. A huge search is mounted, lasting until January 4, 1967, but
Holt's body is never recovered. That night, Deputy PM and Country Party leader
John McEwen meets privately with the Governor-General, Lord Casey, and
tells him that he will not serve in a government led by
Holt's heir apparent, federal Treasurer and deputy Liberal leader
William McMahon.
- Procession make their live debut
at Sebastian's disco in Melbourne. The new band, comprising former
members of The
Librettos and Normie Rowe's backing band
The
Playboys are touted as Australia's first progressive rock
group.
18 The music world is again rocked by tragedy
with the news that American soul star Otis Redding and most of
the members of his backing band The Bar-Kays have been killed
in a plane crash.
- in the wake of Holt's disappearance, three senior
members of the governing Liberal
Party -- Government Whip Dudley Irwin, Minister for the Army
Malcolm Fraser, and Senate Whip Malcolm Scott -- meet in Parliament
House, Canberra and decide to support Victorian
senator and Education Minister John Grey Gorton for the
leadership of the Party, and therefore the next Prime Minister.
20 Caretaker PM John McEwen sparks a crisis
in the federal Liberal-Country Party coalition when he publicly
repudiates Treasurer William McMahon. McEwen bluntly states
that neither he nor his any of Country Party colleagues are prepared
to serve under McMahon as PM, although he refuses to disclose
his reasons, saying only that McMahon knows what they are. McEwen's
opposition cripples McMahon's chances of succeeding Holt
as Prime Minister, and opens the way for a faction of Victorian
Liberals (including future PM Malcolm Fraser) to elevate Sen. John
Gorton to the leadership early in the new year.
22 A memorial
service is held at St Paul's Cathedral in Melbourne for PM Harold
Holt, who went missing, presumed drowned at Portsea on December
17. Prince Charles and US President Lyndon Johnson are among
many world dignitaries who attend. The televised service is also Australia's
first multi-country international satellite broadcast.
- In Go-Set this week:
- Ronnie Burns tops the Go-Set Pop Poll
- "Christmas on Earth Revisited"
at the Olympia, London, with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, The
Move, The Soft Machine and Pink Floyd
- Chelsea Set / Max Merritt & The Meteors at The Thumpin' Tum.
26 The Beatles' Xmas TV
special Magical Mystery Tour screens
on the BBC.
31 Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and friends create 'Yippie' (the Youth
International Party), the successor to the earlier, Provo-inspired 'Hippie'
movement. - The Monkees score another US #1 hit with I'm A
Believer |
