Three Obscure Music Facts To Impress Your Friends With This Weekend

Trying to come up with a regular column at P&P is hard, mainly because Jacob shoots down all my ideas. Granted, the ideas are generally very random, or sound funnier as an idea but once executed simply suck. But as a product of the internet age, I often find myself in a hole on Wikipedia and in awe of something I've found. So every Saturday I'm going to give you three random findings that you can share this weekend at a bar and impress your friends.

DISCLAIMER: SOME PEOPLE PROBABLY ALREADY KNOW SOME OF THESE THINGS BUT SOME PEOPLE DON'T. SO DON'T BE RUDE IF YOU ALREADY KNEW ANY OF THIS JUST CLOSE THE TAB AND GO DO SOMETHING ELSE.

Jimi Hendrix got caught jerking off while he was in the Army.

There's a lot to unfold here. Maybe you didn't know that Jimi Hendrix spent 13 months in the United States Army when he was 19 years old. Maybe you didn't know that he was discharged because "his mind apparently cannot function while performing duties and thinking about his guitar." Or maybe you didn't know that Jimi Hendrix literally got caught jerking off in a bathroom while he was supposed to be on duty. From his official Army file, which The Smoking Gun obtained from the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Hendrix was "apprehended masturbating in platoon area while supposed to be on detail." What a legend.

#vintage #Jimi Hendrix in his US Army uniform, 1961 #retropics # via /r/#OldSchoolCool #bot https://t.co/AVOHIXMdlp pic.twitter.com/g9zpWC24Ei

— History Timelines (@histo_lines) July 11, 2017

19 year old Jimi Hendrix jamming with a friend in the army, 1961 pic.twitter.com/irMcb8gdlg

— Classic Rock In Pics (@crockpics) July 3, 2017

A member of Mayhem committed suicide and a picture of his corpse was used as a bootleg album cover.

Norwegian black metal is insane. In the early '90s Mayhem added Swedish vocalist Per Yngve Ohlin, better known by his stage name of "Dead." Dead's story is wild and I suggest you just read his Wikipedia page. It has gems like: "Before the shows, Dead used to bury his clothes into the ground so that they could start to rot and get that grave scent. He was a corpse on a stage. Once he even asked us to bury him in the ground — he wanted his skin to become pale." Such a mentality clearly signals some other problems, and at the age of 22 Dead killed himself by slitting his wrists and throat, and then shooting himself in the head with a shotgun. When one of the other band members found his body, he took photos of the corpse. One of those photos was eventually used as a bootleg album cover. Norwegian black metal is insane.

Alanis Morissette's debut album 'Jagged Little Pill' has sold over 33 million copies.

Thirty three million copies. I know this isn't an obscure fact and that all album sales numbers from the '90s sound massive, but thirty three million albums god damn! Alanis was 21 years old, and this was her debut album. And she sold 33 million copies and won five Grammys. With first week sales of 100,000 now viewed as impressive, I'm always in awe of Jagged Little Pill and how it absolutely fucked the game up. It's also just a terrific album. Straight hits front to back.

Jagged Little Pill - Alanis Morissette (1995)
-Head Over Feet
-You Oughta Know
-Not the Doctor pic.twitter.com/SRvWXSViwb

— A. (@alexaagrms) July 31, 2017

BONUS: Kid Rock and Scott Stapp (the lead singer of Creed) have a sex tape.

I was going to write about how Kid Rock and Scott Stapp made a sex tape together with a bunch of groupies (something I have long been fascinated with), but while researching I found SPIN just did a piece about it this week. So just go read that instead. Because like I said, Kid Rock and Scott Stapp made a sex tape together with a bunch of groupies.

If you enjoyed this at all or learned anything new, please share it or leave feedback because I really want to keep this going. And if you have any facts email them to me at john.walaszek@pigeonsandplanes.com. Have a great weekend!