The Dead Musicians thread

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I get so sad Sinead, Chris Cornell, Chester Bennington

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I think that was originally a Prince song right?

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[crater]

Sinead O’Connor! 56 years old. Jeez, wasn’t expecting that.

With how bizarre her life has been the last 10 or more years, I'm actually surprised she didn't die sooner.

[clickie]

Sinead O’Connor! 56 years old. Jeez, wasn’t expecting that.

With how bizarre her life has been the last 10 or more years, I'm actually surprised she didn't die sooner.

Thats true because you always heard she was battling mental health issues

[clickie]

I hope you guys are taking good care of yourselves

[clickie]

50 is the age when you give every bad habit up. I'm speaking for myself

[Tyler Durden]

R.I.P. Randy Meisner

[Artemis]

2 gone today...

RIP Robbie Robertson(80), Sixto Rodriguez(81)

[Artemis]

RIP Kevin “Geordie” Walker, 64

A lovely tribute by...

Luca Signorelli

“It feels like an axe-blow near the roots”, wrote JRR Tolkien to his daughter Priscilla speaking of the death of C.S. Lewis, one of his dearest friends.
This morning I got a phone call, telling me that Kevin “Geordie” Walker had died few hours ago in Prague, following a massive stroke last Friday.
For millions of people around the world, Geordie was the guitarist and main songwriter of Killing Joke, a rock band of legendary dimensions. Metallica’s cover of 1980 KJ song “The Wait” introduced the band and Geordie’s guitar work to at least two new generations, but I hate to think of Geordie going down in history because of that. Jimmy Page (THAT Jimmy Page, of Led Zeppelin’s fame) considered Geordie one of the finest guitar players ever. But I don’t want to celebrate Geordie because he was a “guitarists’ guitarist”. Killing Joke, the band he spearheaded through four decades of successes and crises, it’s still one of the most influential ever. But others will certainly talk about Geordie’s musical record better than I could ever do.
None of this really matters to me now. What I want to remember is that Geordie was, for 40 years, the closest friend and most important person I’ve ever had outside my family.
I met Geordie in 1983 through completely serendipitous circumstances. At the time he was dating an Italian girl. He had come to see her, but his accommodation arrangements were, let’s say, “less than ideal”. He needed a place to crash. Someone knew I had one. So, a meeting was arranged, in the basement of a small suburban house north of Turin.
Of course, I knew what Killing Joke was. In fact, I was a big fan. While I was driving back to Turin, in a weird February sunset light I will never forget, I did the normal thing and asked him “What’s the lyrics of ‘Unspeakable’” (a song of their second LP I was very fond of).
Geordie was very tall, and my tiny cheap economy car was, well, tiny. So I remember his smiling gently and leaning forward toward the windscreen as if to soak into that strange light, and slowly starting to spell:
“Fact and figures,
The clock turn backwards.
Fact and figures
Turn anti-clockwise.
Many signposts.
Leading to the same place
I wonder who chose the color scheme.
It’s very nice”.
He went on patiently explaining that “fact and figures” meant “all the available data”. I remember exactly the spot: we were crossing the Amedeo VII bridge across the Stura River. It’s burned in my memory 40 years later as clearly as that weird evening light.
At that moment I realized I had found someone who would be important for the rest of my life, no matter what. If you think about it, it sounds as ridiculous and clichéed as any stupid TV movie: young fan meets the object of his admiration, and they become, notwithstanding the cultural (and at the time linguistic) barrier, best friends.
It’s ridiculous, but that’s what happened. We became best friends INSTANTLY.
And it was not just that. I introduced Geordie to the rest of my family, including my brothers and my very conservative parents (and grandparents!). He was, as they say, “an instant hit”. My mother considered Geordie a sort of unofficial fourth son right to the day of her death. It was impossible not to get along with him. He was charming, polite, and very funny. The language barrier was not a problem–through a lot of impromptu translation and some laborious sign language, Geordie could make himself understood anywhere and anytime.
So began a friendship that went on for 40 years, no matter what, no matter how, no matter when. We never argued, not even once. Geordie was always there when needed. He would call me on my birthday no matter what part of the world he was in. When I turned 30, he flew to Italy just to be with me on my birthday, because he knew it was a difficult time for me. As with all the truly important people in one’s life, it’s not about the amount of time you spend together, it’s the quality. I don’t remember even one moment Geordie was around that was awkward or boring. Geordie had a reputation for being abrasive and sometimes curt with people who tried to approach him, but the reality is that he didn’t want to waste his time with people he didn’t like. And “like” or “dislike” was for Geordie entirely a matter of instinct. It was like a switch that was either on or off.
I could retell hundreds of episodes, but right now even the memory of them is painful. Our silly fishing trips, and that time he had to piggyback me across a stream because I had lost my fishing boot. The time we went to a Malaysian restaurant, and he had to excuse my (frankly embarrassing) table manners with the bemused waiters. The hiking trips in the Alps. The time I spent with him in Portobello when he was living at Sally’s place. The afternoons at the Nomis Studios, in Hammersmith, London, listening to early live versions of the songs that would eventually end up (butchered by a terrible mix) in the LP “Brighter Than a Thousand Suns”. The months Geordie and his then-wife Ginny spent with us in Turin in the early ’90s, often babysitting our daughter. The countless hours talking on the phone, where he would tell me the latest crazy news about Killing Joke, and his infectious laugh. And it’s all gone now. Gone forever.
It's often said that someone never truly dies if he lives in someone else’s memory. But today I wonder. The forty-year story of our friendship feels like an arc beginning that afternoon driving across the Amedeo VII bridge and talking about “Unspeakable”, and the phone call I’ve received this morning, driving in the opposite direction, less than 1,000 meters from that same bridge. The memories will stay, and Geordie’s music will remain forever. But Geordie’s gone, and there will be no new memories, and no new music, not anymore.
You often think, with someone who’s a close friend, that there’s always more time to meet, more time to talk, more time to enjoy friendship. But the reality is that you never know how much time is really left.
“Keep running
Cause it’s nightmare time
Every dimension
Leading to the same place”

[mockbee]

Devastating news...

Killing joke definetly my favorite band the last 15 or so years. Found them late, but Geordies power and control stood out to me, along with jaz of course, but he put it over the top with such a commanding sound. His production was phenominal as well, producing great riffs all the way to the end.
So sad that it's all over....

[someguy]

Devastating news...

Killing joke definetly my favorite band the last 15 or so years. Found them late, but Geordies power and control stood out to me, along with jaz of course, but he put it over the top with such a commanding sound. His production was phenominal as well, producing great riffs all the way to the end.
So sad that it's all over....

Very sad. Glad I saw KJ open for Tool four years ago. Really made me dive into their discog. Im listening to self titled today

[mockbee]

[Pandemonium]

Heard about Geordie's passing last night, this one really hits hard.

Since Killing Joke got back together in 2003, I made it a point to see them every time they played within driving distance right up to their last US headlining tour. They were one of those bands that I always had a sense every show, every year was going to be the last time I'd see them for any number of reasons and never those shows for granted. Despite all the drama and issues within and around the band, shows where there was substitute drummers or bass players, Geordie was always the rock that kept Killing Joke... well, Killing Joke. Geordie as a guitar player was wholly unique. I don't think he ever played a guitar solo in a song, it's all rhythm and that monster ES-295 tone.

Although I'll miss Killing Joke as a band (it's unthinkable Jaz and co would go on with someone else), I think I'll miss Geordies one-of-a-kind sound even more.

[Essence_Smith]

Heard about Geordie's passing last night, this one really hits hard.

Since Killing Joke got back together in 2003, I made it a point to see them every time they played within driving distance right up to their last US headlining tour. They were one of those bands that I always had a sense every show, every year was going to be the last time I'd see them for any number of reasons and never those shows for granted. Despite all the drama and issues within and around the band, shows where there was substitute drummers or bass players, Geordie was always the rock that kept Killing Joke... well, Killing Joke. Geordie as a guitar player was wholly unique. I don't think he ever played a guitar solo in a song, it's all rhythm and that monster ES-295 tone.

Although I'll miss Killing Joke as a band (it's unthinkable Jaz and co would go on with someone else), I think I'll miss Geordies one-of-a-kind sound even more.

Word RIP to Geordie, I literally thought of you as one of the first folks online I know as a KJ fan when I heard the news

[kv]

same, sorry panda

[clickie]

Yeah the first thing I thought to myself was "sorry for your loss panda". You probably turned some people from these boards on to them. With panda's enthusiasm for killing joke I probably would have dug deeper into their catalog than what I already knew but music isn't that big a part of my life anymore.

[Bandit72]

Shane MacGowan @65

https://news.sky.com/story/the-pogues-s ... 5-13008760

Didn't look well at all.

[thoreau]

Just saw this, damn. After seeing that he was getting out of the hospital for Christmas to be with family and seeing some of the other recent photos, I wondered if it was so he could pass at home.

For the longest time, it felt like Shane was going to outlive us all.

[Hype]

Gutted by this one, but he'd been fargone for a while. In a wheelchair for the past 8 years... jeez.

[kv]

daaaamn...oh well...this thread still sucks..

[Artemis]

RIP..Aston Barrett

Aston Barrett, 77, Bass-Playing Force With Bob Marley and Wailers, Dies
Known by his nickname, Family Man, he was the group’s musical director, crafting the hypnotic rhythms and melodies that elevated reggae to global acclaim.

Aston Barrett, who as the bass player and musical director for the Wailers — both with Bob Marley and for decades after the singer’s death in 1981 — crafted the hypnotic rhythms and complex melodies that helped elevate reggae to international acclaim, died on Saturday in Miami. He was 77.

The cause of death, at a hospital, was heart failure after a series of strokes, according to his son Aston Barrett Jr., a drummer who took over the Wailers from his father in 2016.

Mr. Barrett was already well known around Jamaica as a session musician when, in 1969, Mr. Marley asked him and his brother, Carlton, a drummer, to join the Wailers as the band’s rhythm section.

More than anyone else, the collaboration between Mr. Marley and his bassist turned both the Wailers and reggae itself into a global phenomenon during the 1970s.

Mr. Marley wrote and sang the songs and was the band’s soulfully charismatic frontman. Mr. Barrett arranged and often produced the music. He also kept the band organized during its constant touring, earning him the nickname Family Man — or, to his close friends, Fams.

“Family Man was a genius,” Wayne Jobson, a reggae producer, said in a text message. “As the architect and arranger of Bob Marley’s songs, he took reggae to the stratosphere.”
And that’s to say nothing about his playing. He provided the uniquely melodic bass on all the Wailers’ biggest hits, including “Jammin’,” “Three Little Birds” and “I Shot the Sheriff,” and in doing so he helped make laid-back yet complex bass lines a staple of the reggae sound.

Some people called Mr. Barrett a “ninja” bassist for his ability to jump around unexpectedly, playing slow and brooding on one song and light and playful on the next. He got his unique sound from playing a Fender jazz bass, with stainless steel flatwound strings that were custom made for him by Fender.

“It’s almost like a fire in the hearth on a cold night,” Vivien Goldman, a music journalist who wrote about Mr. Barrett for years, said in a phone interview. “It just draws you in.”

Mr. Barrett served as a mentor for generations of reggae bassists, including, most notably, Robbie Shakespeare, who went on to team up with the drummer Sly Dunbar to form one of the most respected and prolific session duos in the world. (Mr. Shakespeare died in 2021.)

Aston Francis Barrett was born in Kingston, Jamaica, on Nov. 22, 1946, the older son of Violet (Marshall) and Wilfred Barrett. His father was a blacksmith, a trade that Aston also plied before committing to music full time.

He and his brother were unable to afford store-bought instruments, so they made their own. To craft a bass guitar, Aston took a two-by-four piece of wood and attached it to a square of plywood; down the neck he strung a curtain cord, with a wooden ashtray as the bridge. Carlton took a similarly D.I.Y. approach to his drums, scavenging old buckets and tin plates for his kit.

The brothers practiced in a basement, where they could take advantage of the reverberations off the concrete walls.

As soon as they had paying gigs, the two traded up their instruments, with Mr. Barrett playing for a time on a Höfner, the same brand favored by Paul McCartney. They played in a band called the Hippy Boys and were soon providing rhythm for the reggae innovator Lee (Scratch) Perry and his band, the Upsetters.

Mr. Barrett and Mr. Marley built their relationship on mutual admiration. Mr. Barrett first heard the Wailers when someone played their song “Simmer Down” at a party. He was transfixed.

“Well, I tell you, I listened to that music so deep, I feel like I was a part of that group and that it was me and my brother who do that song,” he said in an interview for “Wailing Blues: The Story of Bob Marley’s Wailers” (2009), by John Masouri.

Mr. Marley likewise heard the Barrett brothers playing and sought them out. They began backing the Wailers in 1969 and soon left Mr. Perry’s band to join the Wailers exclusively. When two of the original members, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, left the band in 1973, Mr. Marley and the Barretts reformed the band around themselves.

The band continued to tour and release albums after Mr. Marley’s death, though ticket and record sales declined. Legal troubles followed.

In 2001, Mr. Barrett sued the Marley family and Island Records, the Wailers’ longtime label, for approximately $115 million in royalties. A court dismissed the suit, ruling that he had signed an agreement for a one-time payment of $500,000 in 1994; the decision left him with almost $4 million in legal bills.

Mr. Barrett continued to tour, insisting that there were no hard feelings. He brought on his son as drummer in 2009 and eventually gave him control of the Wailers when he stepped down as musical director in 2016. Aston Jr. plays his father in the movie “Bob Marley: One Love,” set to be released on Feb. 14.

Along with his son, Mr. Barrett’s survivors include his wife, Angela; two other sons, Floyd and Kevin; three daughters, Novelette Lindsay, Shadona Barrett and Ramona Barrett; and his sisters, Narma, Cherry and Winsome Barrett. His brother, Carlton, was murdered in Kingston in 1987.

Mr. Barrett claimed to have more than 35 other children, as well as many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, though he did not maintain relationships with all of them.

He moved to Miami in 2001, but he retained a home in Jamaica and returned there frequently.

Though he was long revered in the reggae community as a founding father, recognition outside it was late in coming. In 2020, Bass Player magazine put Mr. Barrett at the top of its list of “20 legendary players who shaped the sound of the electric bass.” That same year, Rolling Stone ranked him 28th on its list of the 50 greatest bassists of all time.

And in 2021, he was made a commander in the Order of Distinction, one of Jamaica’s highest civilian honors, for rendering “outstanding and important services” to the country.

Mr. Barrett kept the Wailers going after Mr. Marley died of cancer at 36. The band continued to play its greatest hits from the Marley years, but with an evolving sound rooted in Mr. Barrett’s musical innovations. He held the group to a rigorous schedule; until he retired in 2016, he was playing up to 200 shows a year.

“When I’m playing the bass, it’s like I’m singing,” he told Bass Player magazine in 2007. “I compose a melodic line and see myself like I’m singing baritone. And when I decide to listen deep into the music — to all the different sections and instruments playing — I realized that the bass is the backbone, and the drum is the heartbeat of the music.”