Steve Strange, the Blitz Kid, frontman of synthpop group Visage — best known for its Top 10 hit “Fade to Grey” — and key figure in the New Romantic movement of the late ’70s and early ’80s died today of heart failure at a hospital in Egypt, the reunited Visage announced via Facebook. He was 55.
Ian Allen, a key member of Bay Area culture-jammers Negativland from 1981 to 1987, died on Saturday from what the band is calling “unexpected complications and infections” following a heart-valve replacement surgery at Stanford Hospital in California, according to an announcement this morning on the group’s Facebook page.
Peter Gutteridge, a man described as a hero of New Zealand music and a linchpin of that nation’s famed “Dunedin sound” through his roles in The Clean, The Chills, The Great Unwashed, Snapper and more, died earlier today, according to New Zealand music journalist Simon Sweetman and the Flying Nun Records.
Tommy Ramone, the last surviving original member of the Ramones, who played drums on and co-produced the band’s legendary first three albums (1976′s Ramones, 1977′s Leave Home and 1978′s Road to Ruin), passed away earlier today, according to the Ramones’ Facebook page. He was 65.
Annik Honoré — girlfriend of Joy Division’s Ian Curtis at the time of his death, the alleged inspiration for “Love Will Tear Us Apart” and the co-founder of the Les Disques du Crépuscule and Factory Benelux labels — died this week at the age of 56, according to press reports and associates.
The death of Casey Kasem on Sunday reminded different people of different things, from those long-distance dedications on “American Top 40″ to his iconic voicing of Shaggy on “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!” But for some of us, Kasem’s greatest achievement was his most unintentional.
Martin Lister, the keyboardist and musical director for German synthpop group Alphaville (“Forever Young”) since the mid-1990s, died unexpectedly this past week, the band today announced, saying, “We are all speechless and shocked” and that “Alphaville will never be the same again.”
Scott “Rock Action” Asheton, the co-founder and longtime drummer of proto-punk legends The Stooges who in recent years was sidelined by unspecified medical issues, died Saturday night at age 64, bandleader Iggy Pop announced today via the group’s Facebook page.
Buren Fowler — who played lead guitar in Southern rock act Drivin’ n’ Cryin’ from 1988 to 1993 after working as Peter Buck’s guitar tech and an occasional second guitarist on two R.E.M. tours — passed away Friday night, according to messages posted to both Drivin’ n’ Cryin’s official website and Facebook page.
Devo fans are mourning another loss this morning with news that, less than eight months after the death of beloved drummer Alan Myers, one of the band’s original members, Bob “Bob 2″ Casale, has died unexpectedly from “conditions that lead to heart failure,” the band announced on Facebook today.
Charlie Chesterman, the frontman of Boston college-radio favorites Scruffy the Cat, part of the late-’80s cowpunk scene that helped spawn the alt-country movement, lost his ongoing battle with cancer on Monday, according to posts on Facebook this morning by friends, including former bandmate Stephen Fredette,
Just months after surviving a secret liver transplant and declaring himself “a triumph of modern medicine, physics and chemistry,” legendary rocker Lou Reed — the leader of The Velvet Underground, who would later release classic solo albums such as Transformer, Berlin and New York — died today at age 71.
Not surprisingly, news of legendary rocker Lou Reed’s death traveled with lightning speed across the Internet today, and an entire generation of musicians influenced by him and The Velvet Underground quickly weighed in on the legend’s passing. Below we’ve collected social media reaction from many of them.
Five months after announcing he’d fallen ill again and that “this time the cancer is lethal,” The Pogues guitarist Philip Chevron, who joined the band after the release of its first album, today lost his battle with cancer, the group revealed via Facebook, saying he “passed away peacefully this morning.”
Drummer Jon Brookes, who co-founded Madchester survivors The Charlatans in 1989, “passed away peacefully” this morning at age 44, nearly three years after collapsing onstage in Philadelphia from a seizure stemming from a previously undiagnosed brain tumor, the band announced “with great sadness” today.
Faye Hunter, the founding bassist of the Mitch Easter-led jangle-pop outfit Let’s Active who played on the band’s 1983 debut EP Afoot and follow-up full-length Cypress in 1984, died Saturday night in Advance, N.C., of an apparent suicide, the Raleigh, N.C., News & Observer reported tonight.
Alan Myers, the third and most well-known of Devo’s drummers, who played on the classic albums Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, Duty Now for the Future, Freedom of Choice and beyond, died this week, according to Ralph Carney, a jazz musician and friend of Myers’, and current Devo drummer Josh Freese.
Arturo Vega, who spent 22 years as artistic director and confidant to the Ramones, creating the punk legends’ iconic logo and many of their album covers, as well as running the RamonesWorld.com website, died today, according to Punk magazine co-founder and “Please Kill Me” author Legs McNeil.
Andreas Thein — who co-founded Propaganda and co-wrote and performed on the German synthpop group’s debut single, 1984′s “Dr. Mabuse,” before being asked to leave the band — lost his battle with cancer and died this past Thursday, according to ZTT Records.
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