He pulled his love out on us, baby.
Category: Obituaries
David Cassidy had some pretty cool moments. Rest in peace.
I’m sad to hear the news that David Cassidy has left this mortal coil. It took me a while to get into Cassidy’s music. As a kid, I was a punker, and so I hated all that 70’s cornball shit. I even found a record by Shaun Cassidy, David’s brother, in my sister’s old record […]
Stan Freberg R.I.P.
While I love rock ‘n’ roll, Stan Freberg was able to lampoon its own mumbling, monotonous excesses in a way that was ridiculously funny, precisely because he could replicate it so well on his comedy albums, with a gleeful mimicry not even Weird Al was capable of.
Leonard Nimoy: A Spy in the House of Irony
For a man with a lot of artistic problems, he’s one of the best.
Sally Boozar R.I.P.
Somehow the email chain we had started with L.A. RECORD never completed itself, and she never did write anything for us. And she never came to A Rrose in a Prose. And she never will.
William Mitchell – may your rest in peace.
In hearing of his passing, I couldn’t help but think to 2008, when another friend of our extended bohemian community, Gina Marx, had gone missing. Many thought she had taken her own life, or come to a violent end. And it was William Mitchell who did the legwork to actually find her, and to let us know she was okay.
I have one less job
The less I say about this, the better, but it is true: I am no longer working for Jazzed.com or eHarmony.com.
EARL SCRUGGS R.I.P.
He was a titan in his field, an innovator, and it was a supreme pleasure to interview Mr. Scruggs and his son Gary many years ago, as one of my first assignments for L.A. RECORD. He will be missed.
Ron Asheton RIP
Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton was found dead today. He was only 60. Though all obituaries about him will start by mentioning his work with the Stooges, including mine, I think perhaps he’d prefer to be remembered for some of his work without Iggy Pop. So here it is, a track from his mid-seventies hard rock […]
Beverly Garland RIP
Beverly Garland died this week. The press remembers her mostly for her television work, and as a Roger Corman B-movie actress. I remember her as both! Who can forget Swamp Diamonds on Mystery Science Theater 3000? And let’s not be hasty and forget Gunslinger!
Levi Stubbs RIP
The singer of the Four Tops died Friday at the age of 72. I think for years, I eshewed the music of the Four Tops because of this man’s voice. I preferred the refreshing sweetness of Curtis Mayfield in the Impressions, and the horny bleating of Smokey Robinson with the Miracles, to Stubbs’s rough, manly […]
Paul Newman RIP
One of the best actors in filmic history died today. Paul Newman, the other guy from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the guy whose star shone so brightly that even Tom Cruise looked like Oscar material when standing beside him, finally lost a battle with cancer.  You’ve got to give credit to Paul Newman not just for his good-natured […]
Farfisa Hall of Fame – Rick Wright of Pink Floyd
One of my favorite keyboardists of all time, Rick Wright, died yesterday of cancer. For anyone who loves the early Pink Floyd sound and despises their later stuff, it’s worth noting that Roger Waters basically kicked Rick out of the band just as they were starting to suck, probably because Wright refused to suck as much as the Seventies […]