The Doors - Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine (Ray Manzarek dead at 74)

Ray Manzarek, keyboardist and founding member of The Doors, passed away today at 12:31PM PT at the RoMed Clinic in Rosenheim, Germany after a lengthy battle with bile duct cancer. He was 74. At the time of his passing, he was surrounded by his wife Dorothy Manzarek, and his brothers Rick and James Manczarek.

Manzarek is best known for his work with The Doors who formed in 1965 when Manzarek had a chance encounter on Venice Beach with poet Jim Morrison. The Doors went on to become one of the most controversial rock acts of the 1960s, selling more than 100-million albums worldwide, and receiving 19 Gold, 14 Platinum and five multi-Platinum albums in the U.S. alone. “L.A.Woman,” “Break On Through to the Other Side,” “The End,” “Hello, I Love You,” and “Light My Fire” were just some of the band’s iconic and ground-breaking songs. After Morrison’s death in 1971, Manzarek went on to become a best-selling author, and a Grammy-nominated recording artist in his own right. In 2002, he revitalized his touring career with Doors’ guitarist and long-time collaborator, Robby Krieger.

Beastie Boys live in Glasgow 1999 Full Concert

Adam Yauch, MCA from The Beastie Boys (the thin sharp one with the almond shaped face) died yesterday aged 48 following 3 years of cancer combat.I feel inexplicably sad about this. A genius has left us.

"love and respect to the end" - Adam Yauch

Portrait of of a Bookstore as an Old Man

George Whitman (December 12, 1913 – December 14, 2011) was the proprietor of the Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris. He was a contemporary of such Beat poets as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. Whitman was born in East Orange, New Jersey, United States, and while he was still an infant the family moved to Salem, Massachusetts. In 2006 Whitman was awarded the "Officier des Arts et Lettres" medal by the French government for his contribution to the arts over the previous fifty years.

George died last Wednesday. I met George in his bookshop in 2007. RIP George.

Leonora Carrington is Dead

Leonora Carrington (April 6, 1917 – May 25, 2011) was a British-born Mexican artist, a surrealist painter and a novelist. She lived most of her life in Mexico City.

"I was an androgyne, the Moon, the Holy Ghost, a gypsy, an acrobat, Leonora Carrington, and a woman." Leonora Carrington.

RIP James Freud

James Freud, singer and bass player with the Australian band The Models took his own life this week. The record The Pleasure of You Company from 1983 was a constant companion for me as a scuffed cassette tape, while I negotiated being a teenager in the rural wastes of Australia in the early 80s. The album is brilliant and sounds as good today as it did then;


No Shoulders No Head (1983)


I Hear Motion (1983)


God Bless America (1983)


King Of Kings (1985)


Big on Love (1984)

Still Life: A short film about Tony Judt

"To tell what is almost always an uncomfortable story and explain why the discomfort is part of the truth we need to live well and live properly. A well-organised society is one in which we know the truth about ourselves collectively, not one in which we tell pleasant lies about ourselves." - Tony Judt

Tony Robert Judt FBA (2 January 1948 – 6 August 2010) was a British historian, author and university professor. He specialized in European history and was the Erich Maria Remarque Professor in European Studies at New York University and Director of NYU's Erich Maria Remarque Institute. He was a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books. In 1996 he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2007 a corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.

Starting as an impassioned left-wing Zionist, he dropped his faith in Marxism early on and became, in his words, "a universalist social democrat". After a period of admiration for the collectivism of Israeli kibbutzim, he would become critical of Israeli policy and its lack of tolerance. He displayed a profound suspicion of left wing ideologies, of identity politics, and of the American role as the world's sole superpower

Goodbye Dennis Hopper

Dennis Hopper died today. For me it started with Easy Rider, which I saw in 1989. I followed from there; back and forward. Read of his life and struggles, his ideas. "Learning to use the accident".


Gorillaz: Fire Coming Out of the Monkey's Head (Narrated by Dennis Hopper)

Kieran Hebden and Steve Reid

kieran hebden & steve reid -brain

This is seriously good. Like some of the best I have heard this year. The irony is the drummer (Steve Reid) died a few days ago aged 66. The man had a gift. He played with Sun Ra and lots more. Never heard of him. I have some catching up to do.


kieran hebden & steve reid - mom's marmalade


kieran hebden & steve reid - left handed left minded

For some explanation check out this interview and concert.

The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle

The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980) is a mockumentary film directed by Julien Temple and produced by Don Boyd and Jeremy Thomas about the British punk rock band Sex Pistols. Starring the remaining members of the group after their breakup in January 1978, guitarist Steve Jones plays a detective who - through a series of set piece acts - uncovers the truth about the band. Drummer Paul Cook and bass guitarist Sid Vicious play smaller roles, and the band's manager, Malcolm McLaren, is featured as "The Embezzler", the man who manipulates the Sex Pistols. Fugitive train robber Ronnie Biggs, performer Edward Tudor-Pole, and actress Irene Handl also make appearances.

The former manager of the Sex Pistols and one of the seminal figures of the punk rock era, Malcolm McLaren, died Thursday, his son said. He was 64.

Joe Corre said his father died of an aggressive form of cancer in Switzerland, declining to give the exact location because he said he wanted to avoid a media scrum.

Music journalist Jon Savage, who wrote "England's Dreaming," a history of the Sex Pistols and punk, said that "without Malcolm McLaren there would not have been any British punk."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/09/MNM71CRRPE.DTL&type=music#ixzz0kcozjvss

Roland S. Howard Dead

Birthday Party on Gotterdamerung - Junkyard

I have posted this video here before but this new year's day I am listening to the music of Roland S. Howard, which has been part of my life these past twenty years. RIP.


Birthday Party: Deep in the Woods

Former Birthday Party guitarist Roland S. Howard passed away early Wednesday morning after losing his battle with liver cancer. The 50-year-old had been waiting for a crucial liver transplant and had been forced to cancel recent shows due to his illness.

Howard first came to prominence as guitarist with Melbourne punk band the Boys Next Door who then mutated into the Birthday Party. Led by singer Nick Cave, the Birthday Party left their native Australia for the U.K. in 1980 where the band established their fearsome reputation thanks to a series of incendiary gigs that often saw as much violence on stage as off.

Howard's idiosyncratic guitar playing -- an incredible collision of blues, feedback and six-string brutality -- marked him down as a true original and proved to be a huge influence on subsequent generations of guitarists.

After the Birthday Party's split in 1983, Howard lent his guitar skills to Crime and the City Solution and These Immortal Souls. He appeared onstage in London with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds in 1991 for a partial Birthday Party reunion when the band played 'Wild World', 'Dead Joe' and 'Nick the Stripper.'



Dead Joe

Sky Saxon is Dead

Saxon died on June 25, 2009, in an Austin, Texas hospital. He had been hospitalized with what doctors suspected was an infection of the internal organs, but the cause of death has not yet been released. He was reported to be 63 years old.

Saxon was born Richard Elvern Marsh in Salt Lake City, Utah. Different sources suggest a birth year of 1937, 1945or 1946. His widow has said that his birthday was August 20, but would not confirm the year because he believed age was irrelevant.
He began his career performing doo-wop pop tunes in the early 1960s under the name Little Richie Marsh. After changing his name to Sky Saxon, he formed the Electra-Fires in 1962 and then Sky Saxon & the Soul Rockers.

In 1965, Saxon founded the psychedelic flower power band The Seeds with Jan Savage (guitar), Rick Andridge (keyboards) and Darryl Hooper (drums).Hit songs for Saxon and the Seeds included "Can't Seem to Make You Mine" and "(You're) Pushin' Too Hard", which became a top 40 song in 1967. Saxon's singing performance has been dismissed by critics like Lester Bangs of Rolling Stone Magazine as an American imitation of Mick Jagger,while others considered it a more complicated synthesis of Jagger, Eddie Cochran and Buddy Holly.

The music on the Seeds 1966 albums The Seeds and A Web of Sound has been described as "weird psychotic blues highlighting Sky's demented vocal sermonizing."

Odetta RIP

Odetta on "The Johnny Cash Show," August 30, 1969. The first song she performs is based on a Negro "field blues" song known simply as "Black Woman," then duets with Cash on "Shame And Scandal In The Family," which was written by a calypso artist who went by Sir Lancelot, in the 40s.

Odetta Holmes, (December 31, 1930 – December 2, 2008), known as Odetta, was an African-American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a human rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire consists largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals. An important figure in the American folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, she was a formative influence on dozens of artists, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Janis Joplin.

Bo Diddley Dead

The bacchanalian rush remains. This footage of Bo Diddley performing in 1966 on The Big TNT Show movie, fantastic and iconic guitar hero, with the marvellous Norma-Jean Wofford, aka "The Duchess", on the second square guitar, the amazing Bo-ettes, Lilly "Bee Bee" Jamieson and Gloria Morgan. Singing "Bo Diddley" and "Who Do You Love".

The swamp stomping driving rhythm of the guitars is still of great influence. On May 17, 2007, Bo Diddley was admitted to intensive care in Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska, following a stroke during a concert at Council Bluffs, Iowa on May 13. He had a history of hypertension and diabetes, and the stroke affected the left side of his brain, causing receptive and expressive dysphasia. The hospital reported him in "guarded" condition at the time.

While recovering from the massive stroke and heart attack, he came back to his home town of McComb for the unveiling of a plaque, on the National Blues Trail devoted to him. The plaque stated he was "acclaimed as a founder of rock and roll." He was not supposed to perform but as he listened to the music of local musician Jesse Robinson, who sang a song written for this occasion, Robinson sensed Bo Diddley wanted to perform and handed him a microphone. That was the first time Bo Diddley performed publicly since his stroke and heart attack.

On June 2, 2008, Bo Diddley died at the age of 79 of heart failure at his home in Archer, Florida Garry Mitchell, a grandson of Diddley and one of more than 35 family members at the musician's home when he died at about 1:45 a.m. EDT (0545 GMT), said his death was not unexpected. "There was a gospel song that was sung and he said 'wow' with a thumbs up," Mitchell told Reuters, when asked to describe the scene at Diddley's deathbed. "The song was 'Walk Around Heaven' and in his last words he stated that he was going to heaven."

Albert Hofman Dead at 102

Dr Albert Hofman died yesterday aged 102. It will be a long time before what he did is evaluated in mass culture in a level and calm way. The discovery of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) on November 16, 1938 was initially ignored. Its psychedelic properties were unknown until 5 years later, when Hofmann, acting on what he has called a "peculiar presentiment," returned to work on the chemical. While re-synthesizing LSD-25 for further study on April 16, 1943, Hofmann became dizzy and was forced to stop work. In his journal, Hofmann wrote that after becoming dizzy he proceeded home and was affected by a "remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness". Hofmann stated that as he lay in his bed he sank into a not unpleasant "intoxicated like condition" which was characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. He stated that he was in a dreamlike state, and with his eyes closed he could see uninterrupted streams of "fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors." The condition lasted about two hours after which it faded away. Hofmann had attributed the psychoactive effects he experienced to accidentally absorbing a tiny amount of LSD-25 into his skin.

Hoffman later said:

"I produced the substance as a medicine. ... It's not my fault if people abused it,"

Hofman's most famous text, LSD: MY Problem Child is online.

Nue Drummer Dead

The great Klaus Dinger has died, aged 61. The German drummer was best known as half of Neu! alongside Michael Rother.
Dinger was a provocative and inspirational figure in the German music scene of the 1970s. He first surfaced, briefly, as drummer in a very early line-up of Kraftwerk, before he and Rother (another fleeting Kraftwerk member) broke off to form Neu!
Neu! went on to record three extraordinary albums that epitomised the motorik strain of Krautrock, thanks to Dinger's pattering, insistent drums. He also began to contribute wild and vivid vocals, so that tracks like "Hero" and "After Eight" from Neu! 75 were an acknowledged influence on an impressionable John Lydon.

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Nue! Negativeland from their album Neu!(1972)




Live 1974: Hero

Klaus Dinger was a German musician and songwriter most famous for his contributions to the seminal Krautrock outfit, Neu!, and his invention of the Motorik beat. Less known is that he was the former percussionist and founding member of Kraftwerk. He died March 20th, 2008, four days before his 62nd birthday.

Tony Wilson is Dead

Tony Wilson has met God. They are working on opening a new club soon. R.I.P. Tony.