To celebrate the life and music of Kristen Pfaff we’d encourage you to punch the volume, get out of your seat, and watch Janitor Joe drop the heat on Athen’s 40 Watt Club. Thanks for the music, Kristen.
Cheers~

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While Willie Brown’s name is immortalized, his earthly remains rest in an unmarked grave in Tunica County, Mississippi. A group of blue fans, scholars, and musicians are in the process of raising $2,100 to get him a proper headstone at the Good Shepherd Church in Tunica. The Willie Brown Blues Benefit takes place September 26, 2010, in Tampa, Florida, and donations are collected there and through Paypal. Reminds us of Janis Joplin and the effort she was a part of with Juanita Green, which resulted in a permanent resting place for blues great Bessie Smith.

We commend Jason Rewald and the other fine folks at tdblues.com for this great cause and for their fantastic research, digging up census records, death certificates, and writing about Robert Johnson’s guitars, tunings, and much more. Keep it up!

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There is little doubt that Janis Joplin’s iconic voice and wild lifestyle in the midst of the counter cultural sixties opened up the playing field to female rock stars, but although there have been countless famous singer-songwriters in the Joni Mitchell-vein and divas such as Madonna, not nearly enough larger-than-life Queen-bee rock personalities have emerged. I’m thinking A-list names here, which unfortunately rules out the Riot Grrrl movement. Courtney Love and Amy Winehouse stand out like an open bottle of Jack at Sunday mass. Who else?

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The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports this morning that the police has arrested four men suspected of the murder. The AJC writes, “Bahir Howard, 22, Corderra Walker, 21, Terry James Fuller, 31, and Terrance Jones, 23 — are being held without bond in the Spalding County Jail on charges of murder, aggravated battery, child cruelty and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime.”

A little girl playing nearby with her toy car was shot in the foot and injured during the shooting, which took place around 6pm Saturday night. According to reports, 150 people were present during the shooting either working on the video shoot or there to see it take place. Several witnesses got a good look at the assassins. “I saw them,” witness Virginia Berry told Channel 2’s Tony Thomas. “They just shot him like this; pump, pump, shoot, pump, shoot, pump.” At least twenty rounds were fired, according to the police.

Eerily, the cover of Yung Hott’s single looked like the crime scene, complete with a Griffin police cruiser, cordons, and a body. At this point the motive for the killing is not known.

Yung Hott has a previous record of drug-related offenses, but was in the process of refashioning his life as a full-time rapper. His single was receiving some airplay in the Atlanta rap scene at the time of his murder.

You can watch Channel 2’s coverage of the incident here.

Check back for more about this later.

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Here’s the complete list:
Rolling Stones/Let It Bleed (1969)
Led Zeppelin/’IV’ (1971)
David Bowie/The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (1972)
Mike Oldfield/Tubular Bells (1973)
The Clash/London Calling (1979)
New Order/Power, Corruption and Lies (1983)
Primal Scream/Screamadelica (1991)
Pink Floyd/The Division Bell (1994)
Blur/Parklife (1994)
Coldplay/A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002)

Now, will the USPS please get on the bandwagon and release stamps along the same lines?

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Tin Alley’s latest single, “Out of Control,” spawned from the drummer’s near-death experience at 27. In an interview with Oz Music Scene, singer and guitarist Jim Siourthas provided some background context to the song.

“So we were just playing with the idea of dying at the age of 27, and doing a bit of a search on the internet we found out that there was a club called the 27 Club. So that’s basically what “Out of Control” talks about. The idea was spawned out of Peter’s accident, but it actually talks about Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and other members of the 27 Club, and what their lives would have been like, and the reason why they died, and so on. So that’s what the song deals with lyrically.”

Speaking of the words, the trio allowed themselves to paraphrase Neil Young’s line (and that Kurt Cobain later included in his suicide note) by singing “Best to burn our bright than to fade into the night.”

In mid-November, 2009, “Out of Control” reached #1 on the Big Pond rock charts where the single (and EP) is for sale. At the time of writing, you can listen to the track on the band’s myspace page. It’s a catchy rocker in the same vein that the Foo Fighters mine, which explains the radio play it’s garnered in Oz. Also available on iTunes.

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Born: March 13, 1881, in St. Louis, Missouri
Died: March 26, 1908, in Chicago, Illinois

Today, ragtime’s best-remembered musician is Scott Joplin, but at the time his friend Louis Chauvin was equally famous within the tightly knit rag scene.

Chauvin was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and although he died without leaving recordings, we know that his ivory chops were legendary in vaudeville circles all over the Midwest.

“Chauvin emerged from the urban subculture of St. Louis,” says Ed Berlin, a ragtime scholar and author of three books on the genre. “Chauvin’s reputation is astonishing when one considers it is based on his contribution to “Heliotrope Bouquet,” a mere 32 measures of music, less than three minutes including repeats. However, its ethereal beauty is unlike anything else coming from the ragtime years, and he certainly impressed Scott Joplin who was the era’s standout composer. This piece of music is unlike anything else ever composed.”

Louis Chauvin couldn’t read music, but his friend Scott Joplin notated “Heliotrope Bouquet” and added the latter half. We’re only left with two other compositions that bear Louis Chauvin’s name, but at least these glimpses provide context to his legend.

Chauvin frequently warmed up by hammering double-time octaves in opposing directions using the entire keyboard. In 1904 he won player Tom Turpin’s piano contest at the Rose Bud Club, and since Joplin was known as the “King of Rag Time Writers,” Chauvin was soon taglined “King of Rag Time Players.”

“The list of contestants demonstrates that as the winner, Chauvin’s talent must have been formidable,” Berlin says. If someone hummed him a composition Chauvin could sit down and play the piece note-for-note, adding harmonies and changing the arrangement to make it his own. Even though Louis’s best known talent lay in fast runs on the keys and incredibly technical impromptu compositions, he was also known as a fantastic singer and a fluid dancer. One account claims Chauvin “had an insatiable thirst for women, opium, and alcohol.”

Louis Chauvin died in Chicago March 26, 1908. He was 27 years old, and the cause of death was complications from syphilis.

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Born: December 22, 1967, in Blackwood, Wales, UK
Disappeared: February 1, 1995, in Wales, UK
Band: Manic Street Preachers

Richey James Edwards of the Welsh Manic Street Preachers was a huge fan of Cobain and thought of him as a kindred soul who was also suffering from existential depression. After a post-gig interview in 1991 with New Musical Express’s Steve Lamacq—who inferred that the band’s image was an artistic mask and that the music alone should say enough—Richey took him aside and said, “Believe me, we are for real.” He carved “4real” into his left forearm using a razor blade. “I was really fucked off,” Richey explained later. “I didn’t know what I could possibly say to him to make understand.”

Edwards suffered from vicious bouts of depression, anorexia, alcoholism, and self-mutilation. The latter started when a fan handed Richey a cutlery set before a gig in Thailand with a note that urged him to cut himself on stage that night. He did.

“I’m on my own, I’m very selfish,” Richey said in an interview. “Self disgust is self-obsession—that’s the truest line on there, probably.” Richey referred to “Faster,” a song he wrote for Manic’s monumental The Holy Bible from 1994. The lyricist (and second guitarist) cut his wrists on the eve of the record’s release, but he convinced his bandmates that it wasn’t a suicide attempt. “In terms of the S word, that does not enter my mind. And it never has,” Richey insisted in an interview, but few outside of his closest circle believed him.

The Holy Bible is one of the top three records of the 1990s. 4real.

It’s a creative collaboration, a defining masterpiece with a fat sound, hard flanging hooks, and sinewy leads accentuated by drummer Sean Moore. The stark lyrics about religion, eating disorders (“4st 7lb”), and iconoclasms were emancipated from Richey’s troubled head, while bassist Nicky Wire filled in the last quarter. Guitarist James Dean Bradfield says he struggled to set music to the dire stanzas, but the result is astonishing.

Even though the record climbed to number six on the UK album charts, it took a few years for critics and listeners to wrap their heads around it. The Manics are virtually unknown in the US (partly because their US distributor insisted on censoring songs and album designs in the name of morals and decency), but the Brits revered them as the hippest in Brit pop. In a way the Manics filled the same role on Britain’s musical landscape as the Bunnymen had before them. Not coincidentally, the quartet sported military fatigues and draped their amps with camouflage nettings a la Echo & the Bunnymen anno 1980.

The controversy surrounding Richey and death continued with the Bible track “Die In the Summertime,” but Richey spun that one too, claiming it was written before he experienced self-destructive tendencies: “Die In the Summertime was basically an old man looking back over his life, over his favorite period of youth, his childhood, basically. Everybody’s got a perfect mental time of their life and that’s what that song is about. And it was written last summer.”

Sure, that’s one interpretation. Although mentally ill, Richey commanded an incredible intellect. He was drawn to very heavy stuff such as the Holocaust, Albert Camus, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Van Gogh, Sylvia Plath, and Joy Division’s Ian Curtis. His artistic, literary, and musical heroes lived short, depressed, yet productive lives.

“He’s just a mess. Fucking nutter, the boy is,” Nicky Wire said after Richey was interred at the Priory, the same mental institution that Brian Jones had stayed at in 1967.

In 1995, the day before a promotional visit to the US, Richey disappeared from the hotel where he was staying. A note addressed to his sometime girlfriend read, “I love you.” His passport and wallet were found at his apartment in Cardiff Bay, which proved he had stopped by there after he left the hotel. But no more clues were discovered until two weeks later when Richey’s abandoned car was found near the Severn Bridge. The battery was flat, and it looked like someone had spent several nights in the vehicle. Could he have jumped from the bridge, his body dragged from the Severn into the Bristol Channel and from there to the Atlantic Ocean? “That’s the only time that I genuinely ever thought that, you know, he’s dead,” Moore said.

Despite no confirmed sightings since February ’95, the remaining band members still deposit Richey’s royalty shares into an escrow account in case he resurfaces. Richey’s heroes fall into two categories: they either staged their own disappearance or they committed suicide. More than a decade has passed since he vanished, but The Manics, Richey’s family, and innumerable fans still believe he’s alive. Is he peaced out in a monastery somewhere, or was that Richey James Edwards someone spotted on the beach in the Canary Islands or Goa, in Mexico or Iceland? “He was a very intelligent guy,” says Simon Price, who wrote Everything (A Book About The Manic Street Preachers). “If he wanted to disappear, he could’ve done it.” At the end of 2007 New Musical Express, Britain’s leading music mag, named the Manic Street Preachers recipient of the 2008 God Like Geniuses Award in honor of their outstanding, unique, and innovative career. Prior recipients include The Clash, New Order, and Primal Scream.

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Born: May 14, 1971, in Queens, New York
Died: March 28, 1999, in Queens, New York
Member of: Lost Boyz, 134 Allstars

Like the blues, hip-hop’s ethos is to create something from nothing, makin’ a way outta no way, and it’s not surprising that a lot of hip-hop’s brightest came from the front lines of urban decay.

Take New York City’s E Line to the end and get off at Jamaica in the South Queens borough. In the early nineties rappers threw down hip-hop jams in Baisley Pond Park there. One of the young men who made a name for himself was Raymond Rodgers who called himself by Freaky Tah.

Tah’s high school buddies DJ Spigg Nice, Pretty Lou, and Mr. Cheeks were there too, and the crew began to jam as a unit. The Lost Boyz appropriated its name from The Lost Boys (a teenage vampire movie that featured Echo & the Bunnymen’s version of The Doors‘ “People Are Strange” on the soundtrack).

The Boyz slung drugs to get by but quit after another dealer they knew was shot. The Lost Boyz soon debuted the single “Lifestyles Of the Rich & Shameless,” and it climbed up Billboard’s Hot 100 thanks to its hypnotic creed “some died wit the name, some die nameless, it’s all the same game, all the same pain.” Based on the single and the promise of more party jams, Uptown Records added the Lost Boyz to its roster. “Renee” followed and was included in the spoof movie Don’t Be A Menace To South Central While Drinking Your Juice In the Hood.

“Cheeks and Freaky were the star players on the team,” Pretty Lou says. Freaky Tah’s throaty voice was the response to Mr. Cheek’s call, the story’s chorus, the adlibbing backup—the hype man. “He was that big spark that started the engine,” says his brother Tito. “He loved his fans and loved being on stage.” Like Public Enemy’s Flavor Flav, Tah’s role in the group was irreplaceable. Tahleek’s deep rasp is found all over their ’96 debut Legal Drug Money; he even rocked the mike on “1,2,3.” The record is part contemplation and part celebration of the Queens they emerged from. Even the song titles speak collectively of a greater story with “Get Up,” “Music Makes Me High,” “Jeeps, Lex Coups, Bimaz & Benz,” “All Right,” “Straight From Da Ghetto,” “Da Game,” and so on.

The album commanded the top spot on the rap/hip-hop charts and climbed to number six on the Billboard 200, going gold in the process. Several cuts from Legal Drug Money charged up the singles charts, such as “Music Makes Me High,” which outsold LL Cool J, Outkast, Jay-Z, and Mary J. Blige in November ’96.

The Lost Boyz managed to stay out of the East Coast / West Coast beef that claimed the lives of Tupac Shakur, Biggie Smalls, and many others. In an otherwise bling-filled scene, the Lost Boyz pioneered plain white tees as part of the hip-hop uniform.

Tah never forgot about who he was and where he came from and invested time in prepping kids from his hood in the rap game. His crew was known as the 134 Allstars and included 50 Cent.

When Tah wasn’t hanging with his crew, he might ride the bus so he could sign autographs or pass out CDs and t-shirts. He was in the street all the time, and on his birthday he’d throw a BBQ for the south side of Queens. “That’s why 95 percent of everyone knew who Tah was,” Tito says.

In 1997, the Lost Boyz followed up with Love Peace & Nappiness and Tah stepped up on two of that album’s essential tracks “Why?” and “Get Your Hustle On,” while “My Crew” paid homage to their hood. The album went gold, and the single “Me & My Crazy World” placed in the middle of Billboard’s Hot 100 chart.

March 28, 1999, the Lost Boyz entourage celebrated Mr. Cheeks’s birthday at the Sheraton Hotel in Queens. Well after midnight Tah said goodbye and left the party. As he walked through the main doors of the hotel, a man on the street shot him in the head and escaped in a car that sped off.

Freaky Tah was pronounced dead at 4:20 a.m.; the incredible hype man was only 27 years old.

In 2001, Kelvin Jones pleaded guilty to murdering Raymond Rogers and received fifteen years to life, while driver Raheem Fletcher was sentenced to seven years for chauffeuring the getaway car.

The socially conscious Talib Kweli pays his respects in “Good Mourning” off Reflection Eternal’s 2000 album Train of Thought. He raps “Freaky Tah, rock rock on.”

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Born: December 4, 1970, in Texas
Died: February 3, 1998, in Houston, Texas
Member of: Screwed Up Click

Thanks to DJ Screw and his Screwed Up Click, Houston’s rap scene rose to the top among late nineties Southern rap. An early member and collaborator was Mr. Fat Pat (or P.A.T), nee Patrick Lamont Hawkins, who went to Sterling High with Screw. The two were buds through thick and thin and slowly built the Screwed Up Click to underground prominence.

Fat Pat released Ghetto Dreams in 1998, and its single “Tops Drop” scored at number five in the US rap charts. Riding the wave he quickly put out Throwed In Da Game. An Austin promoter and notorious drug dealer known on the streets as Weasel (his real name is Kenneth Eric Watson) failed to pay the Screwed Up Click for a show, but taped, filmed, and hustled it without permission.

Shortly thereafter Weasel’s safe house was robbed, and he suspected Fat Pat had something to do with it—a payback of sorts. Fat Pat denied it and said he was no longer in the game—strictly music from now on.

A little later Weasel invited Fat Pat to an apartment under the pretense to pay him for the show. “I’m like, don’t mess with that cat,” Screw said later in an interview. Fat Pat went to the meeting anyways, and Weasel killed him with a shot in the head. DJ Screw: “Basically, because he thought Fat Pat had something to do with him getting robbed.” Fat Pat was 27 years old when he was murdered by Weasel.

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