Rolling Obituary Thread 2022

iPod is gone, but the podcast lives on

I switched to a Sony digital Walkman when they discontinued the iPod classic however many years ago. Never wanted an iPod Touch - it just seemed like an iPhone that couldn't make phone calls.

the only one I still buy for my son (ipod nano 7th gen) has been discontinued since 2017, but there are still shitloads of new boxed ones on e-bay. I wouldn't buy any apple products for myself.

Yeah the iPod touch (and other players of similar design) is exactly what I don’t want to play music from. Buttons or die.

Die it is

:(

Absolutely stoked to be vindicated in my prediction that the iPod was doomed, when I saw it launched in 2001.

I had two iPod Classics that both died around the time COVID came in. They do have moving parts in them that eventually conk out. They had a good run though, the Classic was an outstanding consumer product.

I'll continue cycling through Classics (shelf life seems to be a little over half a decade so my current one is probably due to hit the skids any day now) as long as there are people out there selling new or refurbished Classics. It's the only Apple product I shell out money for. No idea why they refuse to kowtow to the middle aged technophobe crowd but their loss.

my classic is still going & i will treasure it forever

My daughter (20) will not play music on her phone, 4th gen Shuffle is the only player for her.

Perhaps some of the feeling of loss is that the iPod was Jobs' first "product category by fiat" (yes I know there were other players but still), the vanguard of the Apple Renaissance Trilogy which took them from a struggling PC maker to a $2 trillion behemoth. Also leveraged the Walled Garden model which became their defining ethos (after he'd tried it with the Macintosh in the 80s).

My iPod classic died a few years back, and I couldn't find an affordable alternative option that would let me store 160gb in my pocket. So I sent it to some company here in the UK that fixed whatever was wrong with it, swapped in a solid state HD and replaced the battery, and I love it. I've not yet replaced all the music I had on it - I'm up to the letter "L" I think - but I wouldn't be without one. There's too much music I love that isn't on streaming, I travel underground a lot, I'm often listening to pre-release stuff that isn't streaming yet. Amazing machines, really.

I switched to a Sony digital Walkman when they discontinued the iPod classic however many years ago

Which model do you have? I'm thinking of getting one. The NW-A105 is affordable but I've seen mixed reviews of it. Also looking at the NW-WM1A but it seems extraordinarily expensive for an mp3 player.

I have the NW-A45, which I believe has already been discontinued/supplanted, but you can get used ones on eBay pretty cheap. The good thing about it is it uses a micro SD card, so storage is theoretically unlimited - you can put in the biggest card you can find. The bad thing is I've never figured out how to make playlists on it. It's strictly for album listening.

Shivkumar Sharma, Santoor player, aged 84

Saw him in London over a decade ago - the support act was his son’s rock band.

Super Sky Point to Bob Lanier, who averaged 20 points and 10 rebounds per game over a 15-year NBA career while wearing size 22 sneakers. He is perhaps best remembered by American aviator Roger Murdock as a hell of a hard man to drag up and down the court for 48 minutes. #RIP pic.twitter.com/iOKktBAMTi

— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) May 11, 2022

Fred Ward, a brilliant actor who excelled at playing idiots, and people who just seemed like idiots right up till the moment they got the drop on you (kind of a precursor to Woody Harrelson in that way).

damn, he was great, especially loved him in the right stuff.

Here’s a dispatch from Ward’s publicist: pic.twitter.com/OSsnIGLikH

— Alan Sepinwall (@sepinwall) May 13, 2022

oh yeah for sure. The scene in the hotel with his wife after he "screwed the pooch". Heartbreaking.

oh man, i'm going to have to watch miami blues tonight :(

Miami Blues is amazing; I loved Remo Williams as a kid; Tremors is all-time (never saw any of the sequels); and yeah, The Right Stuff is great, probably the only "America, fuck yeah" movie I can stand. I kind of want to see Henry & June — is it a) any good and b) streaming anywhere?

He's good, yeah.

Also recommended: he starred in an American Playhouse adaptation of Katherine Ann Porter's "Noon Wine" giving what I consider his best performance.

Also fine in Southern Comfort, Uncommon Valor, The Player.

I did like Henry and June at the time, as a "sexy period piece" it's better than Kaufman's later Quillls.

Like him in a bunch of things--The Player at the top, I think. One of Kael's favourite actors.

Anyone ever see him in the Ebert fave UFOria? I used to look for it all the time back in the VHS days, and even today it doesn't appear to be available via any streaming or physical media.

It's on Youtube thanks to some enterprising fan with a VHS copy and some RCA cables. Not exactly theatrical quality, but it's there.

I know Ward best for Tremors, where he is one of several magic ingredients quietly elevating the whole thing by several letter grades.

Cast A Deadly Spell is fantastic and also available on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jK3q1fNLeA

Ward was & forever remains a childhood fave as Roone in “Big Business”, the champion put-put golfer hayseed <3

so handsome!

kind of a low-intensity Bernthal vib

vibe

I should have mentioned Short Cuts, I think that's my favourite. (His role in The Player is small.)

I could have sworn he was in a Coen bros film but I guess not. Well, he should have been.

Urvashi Vaid, LGBT activist and attorney

https://www.advocate.com/news/2022/5/14/legendary-activist-urvashi-vaid-dies-63

rapper lil keed, 24

the only member of young thug’s ysl records who wasn’t incarcerated

Andrew Symonds, Aussie cricketer, 46.

https://news.sky.com/story/australian-cricket-cult-hero-andrew-symonds-killed-in-car-crash-in-queensland-12613441

Onkyo Audio
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/Classic-Japanese-audio-brand-Onkyo-files-for-bankruptcy

(an Onkyo A-9010 has been my main stereo amp for years. Lots of inputs for everything inc. built-in phono preamp, optical for Airport Express. Outstanding sound!)

;_; RIP to a real one

I've never felt the need to upgrade my SR-705 receiver (though it has one tic that bothers me: a switch clicking every time I start listening to CDs via optical). Maybe their products were too good!

Ricky Gardiner, David Bowie and Iggy Pop’s Berlin-Era Guitarist, Dead at 73

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/ricky-gardiner-david-bowie-iggy-pop-guitarist-dead-1353905/

The great, hugely popular Czech actor Josef Abrhám has died at the age of 82. RIP. pic.twitter.com/GbMrJ93mRZ

— Ian Willoughby (@Ian_Willoughby) May 17, 2022

Bob Neuwirth, what a life.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/bob-neuwirth-folk-singer-songwriter-134822569.html

RIP. There will be Glissendorf in heaven... if not the other place.

Dylan, from Chronicles: "Like Kerouac had immortalized Neal Cassady in On the Road, somebody should have immortalized Neuwirth … If ever there was a renaissance man leaping in and out of things, he would have to be it.”

Vangelis!!

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vangelis-obituary/vangelis-composer-of-chariots-of-fire-score-dies-at-79-idUSKCN2N51L8

so soon after Klaus Schulze, too. what a legend. RIP to the big guy.

oh my goodness

dang

Terrible news! So many obscure gems in his catalogue. Who's left of the 70s-era synth wizards now, JMJ, Kitaro, Chris Franke...?

Sakamoto and Hosono!

aaaaggggggggggh!

i don't mean to diminish Vangelis, but oh my god, seeing "Sakamoto and Hosono!" as the first thing i read on the obituary thread was just AWFUL

ooops, sorry, my bad!! they are both alive and well!!!

no worries!

also, RIP Vangelis, of course. I haven't explored a ton of his catalog, but for Blade Runner alone, and his centrality to the 70s/80s synth world, he was a legend