Rolling Obituary Thread: 2021

"Problematic" and flamboyant Toronto politician Mel Lastman, 88.

Oh wow, as a native of North York (where he held office until his contentious mayorship - which has course been since vastly eclipsed as far as problematic and flamboyant figures go), he was an ever-present name growing up and, later, a kind of emblem of a certain time and place.

The death of an unlikely hero: Riccardo Ehrman, the Italian journalist whose question at an East German press conference on 9 November 1989 triggered the unexpected opening of the Berlin Wall, has died aged 92.

Ehrman asked the East German press secretary, Günter Schabowski, when new travel regulations were going to come into force which meant that East Germans could apply for permission to travel abroad without having to meet the previous requirements for these trips. Schabowski, who hadn't been present at the Central Committee meeting when the text on travel regulations was discussed, improvised an answer: "As far as I know... effective immediately, without delay." East Berliners rushed to the city's six border crossings and the Wall was opened the same evening.

Addio a Riccardo Ehrman, fece cadere il Muro di Berlino. Era corrispondente ANSA a Berlino est, pose la domanda cruciale #ANSA https://t.co/wyMaJia7RN

— Agenzia ANSA (@Agenzia_Ansa) December 14, 2021

Les Emmerson, frontman for Five Man Electrical Band and songwriter of the hippie-era classic "Signs," has died at the age of 77.

RS paywalled article.

bell hooks. RIP.

ah fuck :(

ah dammit

:( :( :(

:( and ffs

dammit

I just found out that she was still alive just at the time she died. Thought she had been dead for a while.
Whodathunkit.
Think I was just looking up what she'd written since I was just starting to read her. & wanted to know what else I needed to read

https://www.fayobserver.com/obituaries/m0028451

RIP Leonard "Hub" Hubbard, founding member and bassist of the Roots.

so sad :(

RIP hub

aw no!

Eve Babitz:

RIP Eve Babitz, the L.A. Woman incarnate, the insider-outsider whose books & life reveled in the absurd, flamboyant, and technicolor. A genius in a feather boa, poet laureate of Tana's & Musso, all dissolute Hollywood glamour & gilded insight, who said all the wrong things right. pic.twitter.com/6g00SXnAZM

— Otto Von Biz Markie (@Passionweiss) December 18, 2021

Eve's Hollywood is so good, and I thought I would hate it, thinking OK this is probably gossipy bullshit from yet another shallow LA "personality," but in fact it was engaging and she was surprisingly likable as the narrator.

She was such a brilliantly enjoyable writer, as effervescent about LA as Frank O'Hara was about NY. Very sad this morning.

Only read Eve's Hollywood and Slow Days, Fast Company, and they were both incredibly compelling and well-written

And as well as being a sublime writer, she also designed this beautiful cover for Buffalo Springfield!

https://fanart.tv/fanart/music/22dc19af-d085-4c9b-adfb-22ec256251f1/albumcover/buffalo-springfield-again-52c91e01dc22d.jpg

Melvin Parker, 1944-2021

"The greatest drummer I ever had in my life was Melvin Parker," said James Brown. "'I Feel Good', 'Papa's Bag'—nobody ever did that. Nobody. And they can't do it now."https://t.co/OTiYsabljB

— Sean Howe (@seanhowe) December 18, 2021

RIP :(

80 year old Wurzels drummer, John Morgan after contracting Covid-19 on tour.

ooh-ah, ooh-RIP-ay

Sorry to hear that Tam Harvey - Alex's cousin, and original Humblebum - has left us.

Here's he is, caught in the crowd, to the right of the Big Yin, at the UCS protest, on Glasgow Green, in 1971.

Pic: Newsquest pic.twitter.com/NgWdg8ZuJv

— Lost Glasgow (@LostGlasgow) December 18, 2021

Richard Rogers, architect, 88.

Not a good time to be a leading architect, Chris Wilkinson (Guangzhou Tower, Gateshead Millenium bridge etc) at 76 https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/dec/17/chris-wilkinson-obituary

Not a good time to be old tbf

rarely is tbf

Rapper Drakeo the Ruler

Carlos Marín, of the popera group Il Divo, at 53: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/il-divo-singer-carlos-marin-dead-obit-1274032/

Toby Slater, of Britpop band Catch (who were victims of a cut-away from their video playing on ITV to news of Diana, POW’s death). He later became a leader in organising queer spaces in London and was just 42.

Margaret Atwood, 88 - just announced by her Canadian publishers.

Nope nope nope sorry, hoax, please delete. Attwood safe.

Morphine Drummer Billy Conway Dead at 65 (cancer)

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/morphine-billy-conway-dead-1274065/

shit :(

Oh damn.

Morphine played one of the greatest gigs I've ever seen. I'm sure I'm not alone in having uttered that phrase.

i was listening to them recently & got so verklempt just thinking about how much was lost with Sandman’s suicide, the “could’ve” beens of the music yet to come

such a great, great fucking band

suicide? erk, i meant heart attack.
weird typo

Morphine was so good that the show I saw right after his death was also incredible.

i’d believe it!

Sally Ann Howes, "Truly Scrumptious", 91

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/dec/22/sally-ann-howes-obituary

ah, just watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with the kids over Thanksgiving, and in looking her up, marveled that the two leads were both still living.

cristiano ornaldo (darraghmac) wrote this on thread Blue Saturday on board I Love Everything on 23-Feb-2019

im sure ive posted it a dozen times but the quintessential blue saturday poem for me is kinsella:

The day dawns, with scent of must and rain,
Of opened soil, dark trees, dry bedroom air.
Under the fading lamp, half dressed - my brain
Idling on some compulsive fantasy -
I towel my shaven jaw and stop, and stare,
Riveted by a dark exhausted eye,
A dry downturning mouth.

It seems again that it is time to learn,
In this untiring, crumbling place of growth
To which, for the time being, I return.
Now plainly in the mirror of my soul
I read that I have looked my last on youth
And little more; for they are not made whole
That reach the age of Christ.

Below my window the wakening trees,
Hacked clean for better bearing, stand defaced
Suffering their brute necessities;
And how should the flesh not quail, that span for span
Is mutilated more? In slow distaste
I fold my towel with what grace I can,
Not young, and not renewable, but man.

RIP Thomas Kinsella

I see on the Lethal Amounts fb page that Meg Brazill of Los Microwaves and Baby Buddha has passed.

yeah, David Microwave is a member of the No Wave facebook group and posted it there.

Robin Le Mesurier, son of John and Hattie and a fairly accomplished backing musician - Rod Stewart's guitarist for much of the 80s, Johnny Hallyday's right hand man from the early 90s onwards, and most crucially Wellington in Mike Batt's earliest lineups of the Wombles.

Quite a CV! RIP RLM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t52GYAl8xjg