Rolling Obituary Thread: 2021

Free at last. Cool detail from wiki:

Lewis was brought up in the same Canvey Island street as Lee Brilleaux who taught Lewis to play harmonica.

Rapper Black Rob, of "Whoa!" fame.

https://pitchfork.com/news/black-rob-dead-at-52/

Mike Mitchell, who played THAT solo in the Kingsmen's "Louie Louie"

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/mike-mitchell-guitarist-kingsmen-louie-130407646.html

RIP

Walter Mondale?

R.I.P. Read: Former Vice President Walter Mondale's last message to staff https://t.co/gDSjbjCArQ

— Jane Mayer (@JaneMayerNYer) April 20, 2021

Idriss Déby, president of Chad since 1990. Died 'on the battlefield' during a rebel insurgency, which all sounds very dramatic.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/20/chad-president-idriss-deby-dies-military-says

RIP Paul Oscher best known for his stint as harmonica player for the great Muddy Waters from the late '60s to the early '70s. Also played guitar. He was the first white musician to play in Muddy's band and even lived in Muddy's house on Chicago's South Side. Saw April 18 death reported on Facebook and Wiki. Oscher had been ill for awhile

Jim Steinman.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-RVJyNpfDk

Get outta here

Terrible news

He was 73 tbf

Rest in bombast you maniac

Aw, man. I just finally watched Streets of Fire, which was basically a film adaptation of his overwrought musical style.

Yeah, I can see that. The most baffling thing about that movie has always been that it was directed by Walter Hill.

Jim Steinman, 73

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/jim-steinman-meat-loaf-songwriter-dead-obituary-1158472/

Already noted in the ILM Jim Steinman thread.

and this one

Saw that post but didn't read the name, I guess (stupid, stupid hits self in head).

Juggalo Steinman

Meatloaf write-man

Monte Hellman

https://variety.com/2021/film/obituaries-people-news/monte-hellman-dead-dies-director-two-lane-blacktop-1234956241/

Huh. Didn't know he was still with us. RIP.

I interviewed him once (4 questions via email) when his last movie, Road To Nowhere, came out. I don't love all his work by any means, but any director with Two-Lane Blacktop and Cockfighter on their resume has nothing to apologize for, ever.

My friend (a director) stayed at his AirBnB in LA a few years back which turned out to be 2 weeks staying with Monte. He was the loveliest guy and took the time to watch my friend's first film with him, and sent me a signed Criterion Two Lane Blacktop which I treasure. Apparently he taught film at the Cali Institute of the Arts.

One of the extras on that Criterion is a film of Hellman taking his students on a field trip visiting TLB locations.

Thing I learned today: Hellman was the second-unit director on the original RoboCop, handling alot of the action sequences.

Apparently he taught film at the Cali Institute of the Arts.

That's how the interview came about; a friend of mine is also a film professor at CalArts, and gave me Hellman's email address.

Les McKeown.

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/entertainment/celebrity/bay-city-roller-les-mckeown-23963643

:(

Bay City Rollers singer Les McKeown, 65

Oops, xpost

That's OK, at least you told people who he was!

Weirdly sparse wikipedia entry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_McKeown

That's been severely edited, his life was pretty colourful.

one bit of gossip I read was that he came out to his wife during alcohol rehab and confessed he'd been sleeping with lots of men

he got done up on drugs charges years ago too iirc

still, i have a fondness for the Rollers. He was a good frontman!

Lots of women of a certain age on my Facebook page crying buckets.

RIP Les McKeown...in 2013 I met him on a train going to Bognor Regis...that was him travelling to a gig at Butlin's. He was delighted to be recognised and chatted freely about his time as a teen sensation. Rest easy sir ❤ pic.twitter.com/0wCe4WDaXY

— Carol D 💙 (@bluejeanbaby01) April 22, 2021

The exhaustive to a fault biography of the Bay City Rollers -- and Tam Paton -- by Simon Spence is at times too ungainly but as an often harrowing accounting of just *how* fucked up the machine can be on systematic and individual levels, I'm glad I've read it and kept it.

i’ll seek that out!

Yeah, me as well.

Saw the Bay City Rollers in 1989, booked as the end-of-classes party at the student union, no plaid or pretense of former glory, just a fun plainclothes set. I recall being told the woman on stage with them was the head of their fan club back in the day, elevated to tambourine player.

I read the Simon Spence and Caroline Sullivan books back-to-back a couple of years ago. Rivetingly bleak and shocking.

Shock G

https://allhiphop.com/news/shock-g-digital-underground-dead-at-57/

RIP, bumping "The Humpty Dance" in tribute

:(

today sucks

Oh man Sex Packets has been burned into my memory for 30 years and 30 years from now I’m still going to know every word of Humpty Dance and my cousin and I will still reference MC Blowfish to crack each other up. That album got me searching for P-Funk and the Band of Gypsies records which was hard as hell in the middle of nowhere in the early 90s.

RIP Peace and Humptiness forever

Too young, RIP

Sex Packets was an outright classic.. RIP Greg.