Rolling Obituary Thread: 2021

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.

More discussion here, if anyone wants it: Digital Underground: C/D?

Alber Elbaz, fashion designer, from Covid complications, 59.

Bob Fass, longtime radio host on WBAI-FM

#BobFass, Legendary Icon, the Father of Free Form Radio who had a program and home @WBAI since 1963, passed away peacefully today. He was 87 years old. We love you Bob.. Rest in Peace. pic.twitter.com/IvmnJELHaW

— WBAI New York at 99.5 FM, streaming at wbai.org (@WBAI) April 25, 2021

German mezzo Christa Ludwig has died at the age of 93.

https://slippedisc.com/2021/04/sda-news-christa-ludwig-has-died-at-93/

Ewig, ewig...

RIP. :(

cosign on Jon's post

Alber Elbaz, fashion designer, from Covid complications, 59.

Denny Freeman, long-time Austin Blues/Roots scenester and lead guitarist on Dylan's Modern Times lp.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/music/2021-04-25/denny-freeman-the-graceful-guitarist-who-made-everyone-sound-better-has-died/

Bay Area painter/filmmaker William T. Wiley

https://www.instagram.com/p/COLYhCWlegb/

It's worth adding that Elbaz died of Covid 19 despite having been fully vaccinated. RIP.

Recording engineer Al Schmitt.
https://www.musictech.net/news/industry/al-schmitt-dies-91/

Michael Martin, actor in New Orleans, gave a fantastic performance recently in Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets.

I received word this morning that my old friend and collaborator @michaelmnola, whom many of you would know from his role in #BloodyNoseEmptyPockets, died of apparently natural causes last night. 1/2

— Matthew Wilson (@MattDWLine) April 27, 2021

He was incredible in that. Throughout the entire movie my wife and I kept trying to figure out who were the real actors and who were the amateurs, but he clearly seemed like something who knew what he was doing, in the best way.

Yeah I'm bummed out by this, not to be flippant, but I wrote about the movie and he was very active on Twitter, usually at the same times as me (2-3am EST). We interacted fairly often and I was about to send him some zines.

Oh hey, I knew him pretty well, good to see him mentioned here. He was almost like a latter-day Tennessee Williams in his recklessness and creative passion and the rest.

https://louderthanwar.com/anita-lane-rip-birthday-party-bad-seeds-solo/

Anita Lane, long term Nick Cave/Barry Adamson collaborator and Mute artist in their own right.

Recording engineer Al Schmitt, who worked on a million records, notably Steely Dan's Aja. The story about working with Duke Ellington is great:

After serving in the U.S. Navy, Schmitt apprenticed at Apex Recording Studios in New York City, working alongside the noted producer Tom Dowd. On one memorable occasion when Dowd wasn't present, Schmitt, 19 at the time, wound up engineering several sides by the Duke Ellington Orchestra.

"I kept saying, 'You know, Mr. Ellington, I'm really not qualified to do this. This was a huge mistake,'" Schmitt told Billboard. "And he kept patting me on the leg and saying, `Don't worry, son. We're going to get through this.' And that was it. I got thrown in, we got it done, we did four sides. The nice thing was it gave me confidence that I was able to do it. I often think that if they'd told me the night before that I was going to record Duke Ellington the next day, I probably would have called in sick."

Awesome

Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins, known to me mostly as the subject of the Jethro Tull song "For Michael Collins, Jeffrey and Me".

Legendary motorcycle racer Dick Mann: 6/13/34 - 4/26/21

https://nationalmcmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/DickMannMain-1.jpg

Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins, known to me mostly as the subject of the Jethro Tull song "For Michael Collins, Jeffrey and Me".

― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, April 28, 2021 10:24 AM (forty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

known to me as "not that michael collins".

the guy who went to the moon but didn't get to strut. RIP

RIP unlucky astronaut

Probably the most famous line from Collins’ lovely, lyrical memoir, “Carrying the Fire”

“I am alone now, truly alone. I am it. If a count were taken, the score would be 3 billion plus 2 over on the other side of the Moon, and one plus God only knows what on this side.” pic.twitter.com/Zg92Le9yzs

— Rebecca 🌕 Boyle (@rboyle31) April 28, 2021

Mike Stax has reported on FB that Ali Mackenzie of the (British) Birds has passed.

Anne Douglas, widow of Kirk Douglas, aged 102.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/30/entertainment/kirk-douglas-widow-dies/index.html

Johnny Crawford, of television's The Rifleman.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/johnny-crawford-young-star-of-the-rifleman-dies-at-75