Rolling Obituary Thread 2023

Not going to lie, Ken Buchanan hit me harder than I thought it would.

Gordon Moore's death seems to have gone largely unmentioned. Moore's Law must have seemed like madness when he proposed it.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65073812

Can't see past Buchanan as the greatest British boxer tbh

:(

pic.twitter.com/mYLMEN6HrZ

— ryuichi sakamoto (@ryuichisakamoto) April 2, 2023

Oh damn ☹️

yeah just saw that— horrible news

Oh no!

Hearing Franco Scopinich, Italo disco producer. The me of the greats. Some of the coolest stuff. Sun La Shan’s Catch, Camaro Gangs Ali Shuffle. Venise Playboy. Atmosphere Swedes Scandal.

dang RIP, those are some fun tunes

Music exec / Sire Records founder Seymour Stein.

wow rip.
made so many names. i just heard about him signing Depeche Mode sight-unseen

RIP :(

Seymour Stein born the exact same day as Robert Christgau?

Seems so. Ben Sisario’s NYT obit is really good: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/02/arts/music/seymour-stein-dead.html

Sakamoto's passing is hitting me weirdly, because he actually died last Tuesday, and on Wednesday I was gripped out of nowhere with a desire to listen to "Seed and the Sower" and did so a few times, and wondered how his health was, having not thought of him at all in a long time.

Oh shit, Stein. I almost posted about him in on the surprised still living thread. I once sat next to him in Chicago at an Interpol show.

Sire was such an incredibly important label to me in high school (1987-90). Ramones, Talking Heads, Madonna, Pretenders, Depeche Mode, Ministry, Ice-T, the Cult, Ofra Haza, Primal Scream...they were absolutely a label that could be trusted.

one thing with both Takahashi and Sakamoto is that apparently they'd both passed days before the public found out, big difference than with American celebrities where you're not even halfway to the light and it's all over Twitter

posting abot the death of a celebrity while still holding the pillow over their head

In the mid-90s before he got email, Seymour Stein would call into the BOMP offices to leave a message for Greg - totally fun to talk to, and really nice to the help.

Frank Murray, the last surviving pilot A-12 Oxcart pilot for the CIA.

one thing with both Takahashi and Sakamoto is that apparently they'd both passed days before the public found out, big difference than with American celebrities where you're not even halfway to the light and it's all over Twitter

― frogbs, Monday, April 3, 2023 2:33 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Japanese funerals tend to take place the next day or near enough, so maybe this is to give time for the family to organise and conduct the ceremonies? No pomp and circumstance for them!

Jewish funerals, too.

I believed the situation with Jewish funerals is because they're opposed to any kind of embalming/preserving, so best to get the body in the ground asap. However in my recent experience, especially particularly reformed temples/rabbis/cemetaries, that's not a strict rule so much.

also pine caskets, to accelerate decomposition (and emphasize modesty). but yeah, there are always exceptions.

When I say my recent experience, I don't mean to imply I died and was recently buried in a jewish cemetery btw. I'm referring to my grandmother, who passed a few months back at the age of 104!

Wow! 104!

(that of course is the traditional Jewish consolation)

Photographer Kwame Braithwaite, 4/1

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwame_Brathwaite

Nigel Lawson, 91

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/apr/03/former-conservative-chancellor-nigel-lawson-dies-aged-91

Green burial for that climate change denying fucker!

Thatcher's favourite chancellor, climate change denialist cunt, nigella's dad.

Douglas Hurd still hanging in there at 93.

SF drag superstar Heklina, per a post from Peaches Christ:

https://48hills.org/2023/04/sf-drag-legend-heklina-reportedly-has-passed-away/

oh my god, how awful. my husband went to T-shack a lot when he lived in SF, he always gushed about her performances.

Japanese funerals tend to take place the next day or near enough, so maybe this is to give time for the family to organise and conduct the ceremonies? No pomp and circumstance for them!

― inky pinky voulez-vous (Matt #2), Monday, 3 April 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Setsuko Hara (actress on many of Ozu's films, other classic Japanese films too) passed away and I think it was several weeks before it was revealed to the Japanese press, never mind the West.

Nigel Lawson, 91

Not soon enough.

Leonard Abrams, founder and editor of the East Village Eye

My friend & former editor Leonard Abrams passed away suddenly yesterday. We met in 1990 when he was the US editor of Soul Underground. I'm in shock; he and I were just writing one another a few weeks ago and now he's gone. https://t.co/19WRYjCB2d @lithub @villagevoice pic.twitter.com/NY0mfpmqRO

— gonzomike (@gonzomike) April 3, 2023

I hope Nigel Lawson can somehow die again today.

It happened, the only thing that could stop the BBC inviting him on to talk about him not believing in climate change. https://t.co/sSBZm9eoNh

— Metatone (@Metatone2) April 4, 2023

Klaus Teuber, creator of the CATAN boardgame

60s singer Chris Farlowe

Was the first choice to be the singer of Led Zeppelin, according to him

the definitive version of 'Handbags and Gladrags'

Wait.. is there any confirmation on Chris Farlowe? The wiki ghouls have not yet killed him off, and I see nary a mention of his passing anywhere

Farlowe still alive, apparently.

that's good! loads of tributes to him on twitter last night.

not quite out of time yet then

Bokito the gorilla (Rotterdam zoo), who got his claim to fame by once escaping his pen and beating up a woman.
I still saw him last January, a very impressive animal with a back full of silver grey hair.

As my friend pointed out, he's now a member of the 27 Club.

Richard Dillard

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._H._W._Dillard?wprov=sfla1

I did not know him, but moved in some of the same circles and knew of him (of course Annie is one of my personal heroes, but that's a story for another day).

One of the saving graces of this depraved world is that there are people who decide that their best and highest purpose is teaching others.

That's someone for the "poets no one ever reads" club! Haven't even heard his name in about 20 years.