Chris Cornell, whose unmistakable multi-octave singing voice branded Seattle’s Soundgarden as one of the true grunge-era standouts, died last night in Detroit following a concert there by the reunited band, the Associated Press reported. Police are investigating Cornell’s death as a possible suicide. He was 52.
Lionel Augustus Martin, the Jamaican-born saxophone player better known as Saxa, who played with ska legends Prince Buster and Desmond Dekker before helping lead the second wave with The Beat, died on Wednesday at the age of 87, his former band announced.
The day after announcing the death of his longtime bandmate, The Chameleons’ frontman Mark Burgess wrote a long, heartfelt and quite honest reflection on John Lever, calling the late drummer “one of the warmest, funniest, most generous, huge-hearted men I’ve ever known.”
John Lever, the longmtime drummer for Manchester post-punk favorites The Chameleons and spin-off groups The Sun and the Moon and ChameleonsVox, died this morning following “a short period of illness,” his longtime musical collaborator Mark Burgess announced on Facebook.
Sad news today for fans of Bill Paxton, the actor known for iconic mid-’80s supporting roles in “Weird Science” and “Aliens” who went on to star in blockbusters like “Twister” and “Apollo 13.” The 61-year-old died Saturday due to complications from surgery, his family announced today.
On Feb. 20, 2009, Slicing Up Eyeballs launched onto the web not with a bang but a whimper, debuting with a simple 91-word declaration and a headline cribbed from an R.E.M. song that Google Analytics now tells me was not viewed by a single person that day.
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.
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