“He came in with Billy Bunter trousers, frock coat, euphonium and horrible glasses. And big rubber ears. I thought, ‘Yeah, I’ll sign up to this’”: In 1962 a band decided to play as badly as possible until someone noticed. It worked.

CIRCA 1969: British art rock band "Bonzo Dog Band" pose for a portrait in circa 1969. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images).

They bonded over boxing and blended prog, art-rock, visual theatre, Dadaism and music hall – a surreal mix that shouldn’t have worked, and yet which caught the imagination of Britain, propelling the band to stardom – and even live slots on kids’ TV show Blue Peter. In 2012 Prog told the story of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.

In the USA in September 1962, presiding world heavyweight boxing champion Floyd Patterson stood in the way of Sonny Liston’s ambitions. Patterson was KO’d in round one, the third-fastest knockout in the sport’s history. But while his career was flattened, the fight also provided the catalyst for something wholly original some 4,000 miles away.