Just months after the untimely demise of Big Star frontman Alex Chilton comes another loss from this most influential band. Original Big Star bassist Andy Hummel died yesterday at age 59 after a two-year bout with cancer.
At SXSW this year, Big Star was being "feted" if you will, and Big Star was to perform the last night (Saturday). Of course, with Chilton's death on the first day of the conference, the performance became a tribute. Hummel both spoke about his experience in Big Star at the panel, "I Never Travel Far Without a Little Big Star"...
...and performed at the tribute later that day. The man still had some mad chops.
(See the rest of the photos from the tribute here)
In his years after Big Star, Hummel worked at Lockheed Martin and resided in Weatherford, TX. The Dallas Observer did a nice piece on him last year here.
The NY Post reported today that Jerry Fuchs, drummer for !!! and LCD Soundsystem died early this morning from a five-story fall in an elevator shaft.
Sources said Fuchs, 34, was in the freight elevator with another male guest when it stopped three or four feet above the fifth floor. He and the man opened the door and attempted to jump out.
The other man landed safely, but Fuchs' clothing caught on the elevator as he was jumping, yanking him back into a space under it.
Fuchs' roommate, Alex Frankel, 27, said the drummer had called pals minutes before he fell to tell them he was stuck in the elevator.
"We found him in the elevator shaft," a distraught Frankel said. "He was no longer able to speak." Fuchs died at Bellevue Hospital at 3:30 a.m.
The musician's mom, Joy, said, "He touched lives. His gift for music touched many lives."
The Georgia-born drummer had been attending a benefit for The Uniform Project, designed to help the children of India's slums.
Fuchs is the second !!! drummer to meet a tragic end. In 2005, Mikel Gius was mowed down as he rode his bike in Sacramento.
Jim Carroll, author, poet, and musician, died Friday at age 60. If you don't know his music, you may know his book, The Basketball Diaries, on which the movie was based (to a large degree anyway). He was like a male version of Patti Smith, taking his poetry and putting it to music in 70s NY, only his, for a long time, included the back beat of heroin.
Carroll's song "People Who Died" is a blood-pumping homage to Carroll's friends who passed on, one very much with Ramones-like riffs that make you want to start pogoing from its opening chords. Drive By Truckers have been covering it as a show ender for some time now. Patterson Hood does it serious justice.
We're not known to spout politics here at BL&L but today, we feel it's essential to make an exception. Our country lost someone, and something, very important overnight. And besides, this isn’t really about politics. Although so many would like every conversation to be about ‘politics’, sometimes it has to just be about the way it is, and the way it should be...
After a long fight with brain cancer, Senator Ted Kennedy has passed away at age 77. Say what you want about the man, like him or dislike him, agree with his beliefs or don’t...but in this day and age, with the art of oratory so poorly displayed by so many, especially rampant amongst those whose job it is to use speech to inspire or change minds, hearts, and ideas, it was a pure joy to hear Ted Kennedy make a speech to the people.
Even just after surgery for his brain tumor, he left his sick bed to go up in front of the Democratic Convention last year to deliver what some of us couldn't give on our best day. Or go back to the eulogy he gave at his brother Bobby's funeral. He was a man who could, and would, speak to the people, no matter the condition, and make you believe.
A good speaker says the words clearly and effectively so as to be understood, but a great speaker makes the listener believe the words as well, believe they are coming from the depths of the speaker’s heart, or the speaker is somehow pulling them right from the listener’s own soul. This is what a great speaker can do. This is what Kennedy could do. This skill, some might say trait, along with his ability to effectively work with those in his own party as well as across the aisle, should be something those currently in power openly seek to emulate daily, not just when the moment best suits their needs, and bring the beliefs to fruition...make the words reality.
Whether you liked him or disliked him, agreed with his beliefs or not, it cannot be argued that our country lost a very special asset with the passing of Ted Kennedy.
"Some men see things as they are and say why. He dreamed things that never were and said why not."
Indeed; Why not? Words, a spirit, I’d like to see our current leaders serve...today...now...more than ever before...and dedicate their professional lives, as Ted Kennedy did, to answering that question and fulfilling those beliefs.
Talk about a contribution to the music world...thanks so much Mr. Paul.
(Source) WHITE PLAINS — Les Paul, the guitarist and inventor who changed the course of music with the electric guitar and multitrack recording and had a string of hits, many with wife Mary Ford, died on Thursday. He was 94.
According to Gibson Guitar, Paul died of complications from pneumonia at White Plains Hospital. His family and friends were by his side.
He had been hospitalized in February 2006 when he learned he won two Grammys for an album he released after his 90th birthday, "Les Paul & Friends: American Made, World Played."
"I feel like a condemned building with a new flagpole on it," he joked.
As an inventor, Paul helped bring about the rise of rock 'n' roll and multitrack recording, which enables artists to record different instruments at different times, sing harmony with themselves, and then carefully balance the "tracks" in the finished recording.
With Ford, his wife from 1949 to 1962, he earned 36 gold records and 11 No. 1 pop hits, including "Vaya Con Dios," "How High the Moon," "Nola" and "Lover." Many of their songs used overdubbing techniques that Paul the inventor had helped develop.
"I could take my Mary and make her three, six, nine, 12, as many voices as I wished," he recalled. "This is quite an asset." The overdubbing technique was highly influential on later recording artists such as the Carpenters.
The use of electric guitar gained popularity in the mid-to-late 1940s, and then exploded with the advent of rock the 1950s.
"Suddenly, it was recognized that power was a very important part of music," Paul once said. "To have the dynamics, to have the way of expressing yourself beyond the normal limits of an unamplified instrument, was incredible. Today a guy wouldn't think of singing a song on a stage without a microphone and a sound system."
A tinkerer and musician since childhood, he experimented with guitar amplification for years before coming up in 1941 with what he called "The Log," a four-by-four piece of wood strung with steel strings.
"I went into a nightclub and played it. Of course, everybody had me labeled as a nut." He later put the wooden wings onto the body to give it a tradition guitar shape.
In 1952, Gibson Guitars began production on the Les Paul guitar.
Pete Townsend of The Who, Steve Howe of Yes, jazz great Al DiMeola and Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page all made the Gibson Les Paul their trademark six-string.
Over the years, the Les Paul series has become one of the most widely used guitars in the music industry. In 2005, Christie's auction house sold a 1955 Gibson Les Paul for $45,600.
Ah boo...I'd read Frank McCourt had taken a turn for the worse last week but, as usual, you never expect death so soon.
A friend of mine, who, much like me, has read most of Malachy McCourt's writings but not "Angela's Ashes" for the same reason (McCourt wrote a great sad story, almost too well), had a great summation about his passing;
""Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood,"...probably one of the best openings since ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...’...for letting you know exactly what you are about to dive into...a wonderful bit of writing to open a book...
It’s a shame...he could write a great sad story...so much so I couldn’t bear it...it’s a shame he couldn’t write a sad story funny...then again, guess that’s his brother’s gift...sorry to see him go...especially in that manner...suppose to be a horrible death...not many good story tellers around...and you can never have too many...that’s a loss of a good one...
but as I’m sure he’d agree...it was a miracle he lived at all...and he did live...so good for him...shame he didn’t get more time though...it usually is...
Here's what the NY Post said about McCourt's passing today:
Frank McCourt, the beloved raconteur and former city schoolteacher who enjoyed post-retirement fame as the author of "Angela's Ashes," the Pulitzer Prize-winning "epic of woe" about his impoverished Irish childhood, died yesterday of cancer.
McCourt, who was 78, had been gravely ill with meningitis and recently was treated for melanoma. He died at a hospice.
Until his mid-60s, the Brooklyn-born McCourt was known primarily as a creative-writing teacher and as a New York City character, singing songs and telling stories with his brother Malachy and joining the crowds at the White Horse Tavern and other literary hangouts.
But there was always a book or two being formed in his mind, and the world would learn his name, and story, in 1996.
With a first printing of just 25,000, "Angela's Ashes" was an instant success.
"F. Scott Fitzgerald said there are no second acts in American lives. I think I've proven him wrong," McCourt later said. "And all because I refused to settle for a one-act existence, the 30 years I taught English in various New York City high schools."
McCourt was good company in the classroom and at the bar, but few had such a burden to unload.
His parents were so poor that they returned to their native Ireland when he was little and settled in the slums of Limerick.
Simply surviving his childhood was a tale. His father drank up the little money his family had. Three of his seven siblings died, and he nearly perished from typhoid.
"Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood," was his unforgettable opening.
The book was a long Irish wake, "an epic of woe," McCourt called it, finding laughter and lyricism in life's very worst.
"Angela's Ashes" became a million seller, won the Pulitzer and was made into a movie of the same name.
Much of his teaching career was spent in the English Department at Stuyvesant HS, where he shared personal stories with his classes, slapped a student with a magazine, and took on another with a black belt in karate.
After "Angela's Ashes," McCourt continued his story in " 'Tis," which told of his return to New York in the 1940s, and in "Teacher Man."
They're doing an autopsy today, the results of which should be interesting. I mean, "cardiac arrest" in a 50 year old man who had been dancing since he was 5 doesn't make a whole lot of sense; a dancer's cardiovascular system is usually outstanding. My money's either on some weird heart defect no one knew about or....knowing the Michael Jackson of today, a side effect of some weird drug from Thailand that turns your skin whiter or promises eternal youth or something.
To many, Jackson's Thriller was his best work (and it had the kabillion sales to prove it. I think it may still be the best selling record of all time). For me however, it was its precursor, 1980's Off the Wall. I was 9 years old, but the minute I heard "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough," I knew this record (and Jackson) were something altogether different and unusual. (In fact, now that I think about it, it may have been the first record I ever owned.)
As I said to someone last night though, the sad thing is that anyone under the age of what, 30, will only know the tabloid-Jackson from more recent years, the sad, loony, and probable pedophile, not the guy who made Thriller and changed the face and view of music videos forever. If it weren't for the Thriller videos like "Billie Jean" and the title track (especially the title track) ushering in a much more creative and serious approach to music videos, (the album was one of the first to use music videos as successful promotional tools), I'm pretty sure that genre would have died long ago.
And don't even get me started on the Jackson 5...tracks like "Never Can Say Goodbye" and "I'll Be There" are super-infectious. And I double-dog dare you to not want to get up and dance the minute "ABC" starts....or keep a smile from crossing your face. I think if you ever need a song that best symbolizes unabashed happiness-love-summer-ice cream-puppies-babies-joy, "ABC" is the only one you need.
A couple weeks back, Bennett announced a lawsuit against Jeff Tweedy for royalties when Bennett was with Wilco. Bennett's Wikipedia page said this came out after he publicly announced "that he needed hip replacement surgery which he could not afford due to lack of health insurance." Hip replacement at 45, wtf?
Bennett's first solo record after Wilco, The Palace At 4am (Part I) is lovely and definitely worth a listen.
Music for me had become a giant megaphone in my heart and ears that connected me to the bigger, more resonate stories that drive and compel us to do the things we do. For better or for worse, for laughter or tears music, real music, never lies to you. -singer/songwriter Matthew Ryan I am a lost soul/I shoot myself with rock & roll/The hole I dig is bottomless/But nothing else can set me free-Guided by Voices
These songs are up for listening purposes only for a short time. If you like what you hear, please go purchase the tracks. Support the artist!
If you’re an artist or label who wants the song taken down, please drop me a note. Smoochas.
Sunrise Always Listens (Or if you are a band, or are with a band...)
If you have some tracks you want me to listen to, email mp3s or streams along electronically here. Mail in the Nation's Capitol is often slooow, thanks to anthrax scares and other assorted nuttiness. Plus, my friends are sick of carrying boxes and boxes of CD's when I move.
