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 tended to wear his life on his sleeve. You can read the full story here.

But one thing that struck me–aside from everything else–about Savage was his dedication to being a punk rocker. He came here with three jean jackets emblazoned with shoutouts to his beloved Turbonegro. He also brought with him only one CD: a best-of Motorhead compilation. And for his new friends, a sack of Crass buttons.

Savage was 36. It’s just a long time to be a punk rocker. I don’t think this is so rare anymore. The Internet certainly helps. He lived on the Turbonegro fan message boards. And just about any band has some sort of forum for other fans to communicate with each other–trade bootlegs, merch, set lists, and just feel like they are a part of something. So few scenes feel like scenes anymore. Except on the Internet. Pitchfork makes a point about this today with its review of the new No Age record–a band very much rooted in a city and in an all-ages space.

Maybe with the music shake-up in Mount P, things could change here as well.

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 a long time it was Paul Davis with his broken-heart ballad “I Go Crazy,” which was in the Top 100 for 40 weeks and on AT20 for what felt like twice that.

Here’s a video of Davis performing “I Go Crazy.” It’s instructive how little motion there is onstage.

Personally, I prefer “65 Love Affair,” (listen here) because I like to remember when rock ‘n’ roll was simple and clear.

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 the “motorik” rhythm that defined early Kraftwerk, Neu!, and much of the small “krautrock” movement. He and the other half of Neu!, Michael Rother, also anticipated the remix trend when they ran out of money for their second album and simply filled one side with versions of two previously released songs that they had manipulated by speeding up, slowing down, and warping tape.

Dinger’s second band, La Dusseldorf had a tremendous influence on the work of Brian Eno and David Bowie, particularly their “German” collaborations on Low, Heroes, and Lodger.

Still, Neu! remains Dinger’s definitive work. The below video isn’t terribly interesting to look at, but does feature the band’s signature song, “Hallogallo.”

So long, Klaus.

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 Rock was a perfect fusion of eschatology and acid-rock; its single “I Wish We’d All Been Ready” named the Left Behind series and was covered by D.C. Talk (remember “Jesus Freak”?). More important, it was an amazing song. In this video, Norman sounds like Pat Buchanan fronting the Partridge Family. Early Christian rock was deeply, awesomely weird.

Norman eventually managed to p.o. pretty much the entire Christian rock establishment and distanced himself from the genre altogether (the feeling was mutual), though he still made Jesus music. His health declined in recent years and he threw several festivals to raise money for his medical treatment. In 2005, Frank Black, a fan of Norman’s since childhood, backed him. According to the press release, Norman was working on an album with Frank Black and Isaac Brock.

Norman endlessly tinkered with his back catalog, reissuing and repackaging his hits. If you can find Upon This Rock, it’s worth a listen, as is So Long Ago the Garden, the first album ever to be banned by Christian bookstores, for a cover that some thought depicted Norman nude. As proved to be the case often in Norman’s life, it was a misunderstanding that he facilitated.

Annandale’s Strangeland Records won’t close its doors until March, but the metal-industrial shop will toast to its end with its last blowout show tomorrow, January 19. The ten-hour affair (2 p.m. to midnight) will feature thrash act Battlemaster (pictured), death metal guys Three Faces of Eve, plain metal dudes High Five for Suicide, and eight other local doom/thrash/punk/indie bands.

Next Saturday, Strangeland will follow up with its final DJ event, bringing in 20 area spinners to show the store off.

Karlheinz Stockhausen, an electronic music pioneer and one of the titans of 20th century classical music, died at home on Wednesday, December 5th.

You can hear some of the German composer’s sounds here.

You can see him here.

And yours truly on Hymnen mit Orchester.

Everybody’s favorite obnoxious gossip site says that Pimp C, the beatmaking, rabble-rousing half of UGK, died this morning in Hollywood. Here’s our review of the Houston group’s latest disc, Underground Kingz.