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.
Martin Lloyd — half of early ’80s minimal electronic duo Oppenheimer Analysis, famously known for its self-released New Mexico cassette — died this morning due to liver failure, according to a statement released by Lloyd’s record label, Minimal Wave.
Chrissy Amphlett — the sultry lead singer of Australian rockers Divinyls, who released four albums in the ’80s before hitting it big with their risque smash single “I Touch Myself” — died in New York on Sunday following a long battle with cancer, according to Australian media reports.
Scott Miller, who fronted ’80s college-rock act Game Theory and later The Loud Family, has died at the age of 53, according to a message posted on the latter band’s website. “He was a wonderful, loyal friend as well as a brilliant musician, and I will miss him for the rest of my life,” his webmaster wrote.
Gary Biddles, a onetime roadie for The Cure who sang in Fools Dance and Presence in the ’80s and ’90s, each of which featured members of that band, has died, according to former Cure keyboardist Lol Tolhurst. The details surrounding Biddles’ death are not yet known.
As one of our readers noted this morning, Morrissey finally got the answer to the question he posed of Margaret Thatcher in his controversial Viva Hate closer “Margaret on the Guillotine”: “When will you die?” The former British prime minister passed away today at age 87.
Mike Scaccia — who joined Ministry during the Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste tour and went on to play with various Al Jourgensen-led projects including Revolting Cocks, 1000 Homo DJs and Lard — died early this morning after collapsing on-stage in Fort Worth, Texas, during a performance with metal band Rigor Mortis.
There’s been no announcement about the fate of the 27-year-old magazine, but now it’s official: As The Daily Swarm points out, Spin subscribers are receiving the current issue of Car and Driver with letters advising them that Spin “ceased publication” after that September/October issue.
Dennis Flemion, who co-founded the cult indie-pop act The Frogs with his younger brother Jimmy in Milwaukee in 1980 and rose to minor alt-rock celebrity in the ’90s, is missing and presumed dead in a Wisconsin lake, Matador Records co-owner Gerard Cosloy announced on the label’s blog tonight.
Beastie Boys co-founder Adam Yauch — known by his on-stage and behind-the-lens alter egos MCA and Nathanial Hörnblowér, respectively — lost a nearly 3-year-old battle with this morning, passing away in a New York hospital and leaving a deep musical and activist legacy that spanned the 1980s, ’90s and 2000s.
Copyright © 2013 slicing up eyeballs // 80s alternative music, college rock, indie. All Rights Reserved.
