"When I die, gimme six crap-shootin' pall-bearers / Chorus girls, sing me a song / Put a red-hot jazz band at the top of my head / Hallelujah as we roll along."
The question of how to dispose of my mortal remains has weighed on me of late. Raised Baptist and Episcopalian by turns—with a [...]
Sad news for anyone awaiting a Pink Floyd reunion: Richard Wright, the band's organist and one of its founding members, died today of cancer. He was 65.
Wright was the linchpin of the Floyd sound. That lush organ, with its beastly Leslies and bent-pitch contortions, preserved and broadened the breathless psychedelia that Syd Barrett [...]
DCist is reporting that indie pop duo Georgie James–and one of D.C.'s more interesting groups–has called it quits. Here is the message posted on the band's website:
After three years, Georgie James is calling it a day. We're proud of the album we made and everything else that we were able to do during our time [...]
The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that experimental filmmaker Bruce Conner died yesterday of natural causes. Anybody who knows about experimental filmmaking knows at least a little about his work; music fans too. Here's the film Conner directed for Devo's "Mongoloid":
And here's his film for Brian Eno and David Byrne's "America Is Waiting," from their [...]
Thanks to a tip from a smart reader, we checked into the Bo Diddley-lived-here thesis. It's true. Diddley lived at 2614 Rhode Island Avenue NE in the '60s. [OK–the reader had all the facts completely correct]. He talks about living here in a Washington Post feature published in 2006:
Diddley lived here from 1959 to 1966, [...]
Bo Diddley has died. This sucks. Despite the fact that he was long past his hipster prime, he still rocked a lot of group house parties–specifically mine. I picked up his greatest hits on vinyl for cheap and would always crank up "Mona."
So thank you, Bo Diddley.
For a few days, I was tasked with researching the life of Christopher Savage. Savage had moved to D.C. from Bakersfield, Calif. in the hopes of starting a new life. After five days in the District, he ended up dead. The cause of his death remains a mystery. His life is a different matter. He [...]
Dim the lights and pour out a little rosé tonight for soft-rock pioneer Paul Davis, who passed away yesterday at 60. One of the formative experiences of my early musical life was listening to Casey Kasem's American Top 20 and for some reason keeping detailed lists of who was at what position each week. For [...]
Nobody in the English-language music press seems to be reporting it–even at Pitchfork, which is usually on top of these things–but Klaus Dinger, cofounder of krautrock greats Neu! and La Dusseldorf, died of heart failure on March 21. He was four days shy of his 62nd birthday.
Dinger was a composer and drummer, most responsible for [...]
Larry Norman died yesterday. Norman basically invented Christian rock. Yeah, there were some earlier stabs at the stuff, but Norman actually figured out the important part of pop culture is the "pop" part (you know the "one way" finger-pointing-upward symbol beloved of athletes who've just scored? Norman invented that!). His 1968 Capitol LP Upon This [...]
