Rolling Obituary Thread 2023

otm re Captain Holt, one of the best sitcom characters ever. awful news :(

man thats a shock, he was great in everything i ever saw him in

I've seen him in a lot of movies and know him by face rather than name, rip

Andre Braugher was one of the top five greatest actors I've watched on TV.

My god he was so good in Homicide. The Adena Watson episode...

John Lydon manager John Rambo Stevens https://deadline.com/2023/12/john-rambo-stevens-dead-1235664462/

braugher was really one of the best actors of his generation. just gutting.

and to lose him and lance reddick in the same year…we’ve got a serious gravitas shortage

(xp) Appears to have been a total dick but sad for John L.

the stroke episode of Homicide was devestating

When I watched Andre Braugher on Homicide as a teen I thought he had some Al Pacino-level stardom ahead of him. He was totally riveting.

I love this bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg93zJiHJOs

Travis Dopp, guitarist from Small Brown Bike, RIP

Really funny up and coming comedian Kenny Deforest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0DGfLhg4o8

rip. he was a funny dude. so fuckin young

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/cari-beauchamp-dead-hollywood-historian-author-1235757275/

Film historian Cari Beauchamp, 74

Kenpachiro Satsuma, stuntman and kaiju suit actor including Godzilla in the 80s and 90s

RIP. His finest work:

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

RIP to Kenpachiro but jesus you scared me there

Oof, yeah, sorry. As far as I know Bobcat is fine (and might live kinda near me right now?).

Michel Ciment - I don't know his work outside his Kubrick book, which I love. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/15/movies/michel-ciment-dead.html

Detroit soul legend Amp Fiddler, 65.

Oh shit! RIP

Oh no! Legendary career of course, and my house-loving-but-crowd-hating self has been jamming quietly at home to this one for at least the last half decade:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkksfth--wU

Jim Ladd, LA Radio Veteran (KNAC, KLOS, KMET) dead at 75

https://lamag.com/arts-and-entertainment/jim-ladd-radio-veteran-siriusxm-dead

SXM Deep Tracks is playing a pretaped Jim Ladd show RIGHT NOW (and according to their schedule, it'll be flowed this evening by a taped shift from Dusty Street, who died in late October).

Oof.

Ok, it's actually Meg Griffin filling in for Ladd, playing songs suggested by his widow and other tracks that were close to him.

RIP. I don’t think I ever heard him or heard of him but of course I am familiar with Meg Griffin as well as the weird feeling of another DJ from one’s youth biting the dust.

I barely remember what my dad's voice sounded like, but I'll probably remember Jim Ladd's voice until the end of time. I'd love to see some playlists from the couple of years he was at KEDG in the late 80s when he eschewed much of the classic boomer rock and was playing stuff like Love And Rockets, The Church, Sonic Youth in between the Jim Morrison "is everybody in?" soundbites.

Ace Farren Ford of the Los Angeles Free Music Society scene has passed away, apparently.

Craig Stewart, founder of the Emperor Jones label. Others knew him personally, I defer to them, and simply say that his label was a real treasury over the years.

too bummed out about Craig dying to make the post he deserves, but Emperor Jones was honestly one of the most distinctive labels of its time, which probably worked against it -- the only aesthetic criterion that really held was "stuff Craig likes," which could be noisy jammy sludgy stuff or organic noise improv or NZ 4-track bedroom weirdo stuff. EJ was a passion project and Craig's passion for music shone through it -- some of his artists went on to greater renown, which was fine by him. He put out My Dad Is Dead's stuff when nobody was really caring about seminal 80s college indie stuff and one of the albums he released, Everyone Wants the Honey But Not the Sting, is among their best work. Very little of what he released is on the streaming services, though you can find it on Youtube -- although only bits and pieces of the Nigel Bunn album, which is a singular wonder in the world. He was the nicest guy, incredibly loving and positive and helpful and passionate; he'd had frontotemporal dementia for some time, which took his power to speak away first, some years ago. He continued sending me emails for a long time with single or double word subject lines, sharing music ("JETHRO TULL!!!") he'd find online, always weird stuff. The tape of Merle Haggard's best he made for me to listen to on tour totally upended my ideas about what country was, his country knowledge was DEEP, he made me several comps that expanded my horizons more than I can say.

Terrible personal loss to me, made a little easier knowing that the last seven or more years have been pretty hard on him & his loved ones, but this passing takes from the world somebody who changed my life permanently.

sending you good feelings as you remember him, JCLC

Wilf Lunn, archetypal crackpot inventor on kids TV on the 70s.

RIP

Wilf Lunn, i hadn't thought about you in 20 years or so but you were an icon of my childhood. i will always smile when i think of you.

Torben Ulrich

https://www.instagram.com/p/C1GTIcTrhW2/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Really remarkable guy, sad that I never got to see any of his work when I might have had the chance.

Wow. He's all time for his appearance in the doc alone.

otm RIP

saw him once, experimental stuff (kind of a piece for piano, poetry and percussion) with an easy vibe, he was very charismatic when introducing the set and explaining the ideas behind it

a note to school from Torben Ulrich making the rounds in Danish media:

Lars is late for school today because we found it important that he stay up until 2 in the morning listening to jazz music and that it was also important he get a good night's sleep

Ruth Seymour, public radio pioneer and manager of LA radio station KCRW

https://www.npr.org/2023/12/22/1220040179/longtime-kcrw-general-manager-ruth-seymour-dies-at-88

Sandy Hurvitz/Essra Mohawk

https://deadline.com/2023/12/essra-mohawk-dead-singer-songwriter-was-75-1235681205/

Oh! RIP

Chicago actor Mike Nussbaum, reportedly the oldest working actor in the US, dies at 99. RIP.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/chicago-actor-mike-nussbaum-dies-182000810.html

former (Dixie) Chick bass/vocalist Laura Lynch :
https://variety.com/2023/music/news/laura-lynch-dead-dixie-chicks-1235850102/

RIP Afro-Colombian champeta & cumbia singer accordionist Lisandro Meza who did an awesome take on Fela's song Shakara called "Shacalao". Disco Fuentes label on twitter reporting death

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

sad to hear! all his disco fuentes albums i have heard rule and that version of Shakara is all time.

"Shakara" must have been huge in Colombia, because there's another version, by the studio-only group Wganda Kenya, that's even wilder:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMOajYNU60E

It was indeed! There is also this super good version by Cumbia Moderna De Soledad - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz67nw3y8M4

Richard Franklin, only really known as Mike Yates, the Pertwee era UNIT officer in Doctor Who.

Aw. He and Jo Grant had fun together I recall.