Rolling Obituary Thread 2025

Wayne Osmond, 73, of the Osmonds

also

Russ North, 59, former singer of Clover Hoof, and runner-up to replace Bruce Dickinson in Iron Maiden.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKUjuKjeCsk

Jocelyn Wildenstein has sadly used up the last of the 9 lives

Pippa Garner, whose work i only encountered for the first time at the most recent hammer museum biennial

https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/pippa-garner-dead-1234729124/

David Lodge

https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2025/01/david-lodge-obituary

Someone who felt everywhere when I was an Eng Lit teenager, & I read and enjoyed the campus trilogy, but then never anything else.

Britt Allcroft, creator of Thomas the Tank Engine.

RIP, David Lodge. Read most of what he wrote through the campus trilogy and then a few things after that. Seem him give a reading from Paradise News at Books, Inc. on the Upper East Side when it came out.

I gave up on him after his terrible book ‘Thinks…’. He was good when he was at his peak, but he couldn’t seem to shake off his rather tiresome obsessions in his later work.

Yeah, he became a bit of an old bore, sorry to say.

Adam Roberts said it better in his review of his H.G. Wells book.

Mick Hobbs of the Work, Officer! And other This Heat type adjacent arty stuff.

Soulman Brenton Wood

https://variety.com/2025/music/news/brenton-wood-dead-the-oogum-boogum-song-soul-singer-1236265160/

"CheckOutTheBootsEh CheckOutTheBootsEh CheckOutTheBootsEh"

Heh, Adam Roberts wrote something nice about David Lodge in his new(ish) substack and now says his H.G. Wells book is “better than its reputation.”

Jeff Baena, 47, filmmaker and Aubrey Plaza’s husband

Absolutely tragic. Reports suggest it was suicide

Tomiko Itooka, a Japanese woman who was the world's oldest person according to Guinness World Records, has died, an Ashiya city official said Saturday. She was 116.

https://abc7news.com/post/is-oldest-person-alive-tomiko-itooka-japanese-woman-was-worlds-116-has-died/15751689/

I wish I could have the extra years now, not when I'm 112

The Jeff Baena thing is mind wrecking

The Vivienne, winner of Rupaul's Drag Race UK Season One, 32.

this is just awful

Experimental playwright and one of the real heroes of the Downtown scene, Richard Foreman.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/04/theater/richard-foreman-dead.html

Per a post from Steven Krakow just now on FB, ESP-Disk veteran/painter Ed Askew, who had a good second run these past twenty five years with a full series of albums following the debut back in 1968.

xp wow i was just talking about Richard Foreman with someone the other day. learned about his work from my favorite college professor who had us read pages from some of his scripts. RF more or less retired from theater while i was living in nyc; sad i never got to see any of his productions, they seemed like quite the trip.

Think I only ever got over to see one production of his, which I enjoyed, but always found him interesting and intriguing. RIP.

Per a post from Steven Krakow just now on FB, ESP-Disk veteran/painter Ed Askew, who had a good second run these past twenty five years with a full series of albums following the debut back in 1968.

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, January 5, 2025 4:00 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I shared a bill with him at a Greenpoint loft party about ten years ago now— Ka Baird introduced him. Tons of people came out despite what was essentially a hurricane going on outside. He was a lovely person, chatted with him for a while. RIP.

"Goin' Down" Dude Don Nix

https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/entertainment/music/2025/01/01/don-nix-obituary-stax-artist-songwriter-producer/77388086007/

Alfa Anderson, the lead singer of Chic from 1978-1983, aged 78

https://ra.co/news/81880

Alfa Anderson passed in 2024 and already posted on the old thread.

oops i missed that!

Mike Rinder, 69, ex-Scientologist and Leah Remini’s co-host on several shows.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, French fascist, 96

good

Good riddance.

God that fucker was still hanging around, huh

Gunvor Nelson, one of the greatest experimental filmmakers. would encourage everyone to seek out red shift

Reuters describing him as an unabashed nationalist (not like those many meek, humble ones) and a 'pugnacious mix of populism, eloquence and charisma'.

🤮🤮🤮

Fascist ghouls tend to live forever unfortunately, or what seems like it. Unless they're shot and hung upside down from a lamppost first of course.

"oh I'm angin from a lamppost at the corner of the street .."

© Alexei Sayle

Peter Yarrow, 86

Wow!

Aww, the Italian 'Robinson Crusoe' Mauro Morandi has died... they killed him when they forced him off his island

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/07/hermit-guardian-budelli-island-off-sardinia-dies

Beej Chaney from Minneapolis greats the Suburbs:

https://www.startribune.com/beej-chaney-suburbs-death-guitarist/601203171

I just bumped the Suburbs thread to post this. I’m really sad.

RIP Pete Yarrow bc Peter Paul & Mary were a childhood cornerstone … but it’s hard to square that with the fact that Carter pardoned him for his ~admitted~ sexual assault of a 14yo girl and not scream into the void

Just read this now. So weird--I was in a theatre yesterday rewatching A Complete Unknown (Yarrow's in there two or three times, including the guy who reintroduces Dylan for his crowd-calming acoustic number at Newport '65). Fan from childhood too; didn't know about the assault at all.

apparently there may have been other incidents

https://web.archive.org/web/20210517122113/https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/05/17/peter-yarrow-carter-pardon-assault/

wow just read some of that, he was puff the magic scumbag

xpost This ILM thread gets to the heart of that matter, I figure:

TS: The Call v. The Alarm

Wizz Jones is one of those names I come across when reading about the golden age of British folk, but not sure I've ever listened to any of his stuff... I'll head over to youtube and hunt some down

A song about having long hair ... in 1960.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDsQSOf6_ow

jeez, they make the beatles & stones look like marine recruits

Thanks, Tom. Beautiful player and I love his voice. Played his last show on February 28th of this year.

Seeing reports that the actress Priscilla Pointer has died at the age of 100

― Josefa, Tuesday, April 29, 2025 1:01 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Confirmed at: https://variety.com/2025/film/news/priscilla-pointer-dead-carrie-dallas-1236381607/

Andy Bey. https://www.wrti.org/arts-desk/2025-04-29/andy-bey-jazz-singer-of-emotional-and-musical-range-has-died-at-85

Mike Peters of the Alarm, 66.

15 year old Trayce would have been shattered by this news. 54 year old Trayce is still sad (but extremely embarrased by how into the Alarm she was).

Wizz Jones is one of those names I come across when reading about the golden age of British folk, but not sure I've ever listened to any of his stuff... I'll head over to youtube and hunt some down

Wizz Jones is one of those people I never would’ve discovered without YouTube or streaming — he was still playing live (pubs mostly) as of last year -- I wa hoping to catch him. This isn’t necessarily a representative track but I love it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR1qH4Rztig

When the Alarm posed as a younger band and got a pop punk track on the charts twenty years after their peak, that was good

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Poppy_Fields

Great story, can’t recall being aware of it at the time. Song is pretty good too.

first knew Joshua Clover as Jane Dark, somehow coming across "her" silky, snarky elusively poetic print monozine, Sugar High (might've been an exclamation point at end of title, will have to dig those issues up). I wrote a fan letter, mentioning that the tone reminded me of MTV's animated suburban princess of smart stuff Daria. J. thanked me and said that comparisons had also been made to Daria's tall best friend Jane, which was even better, which was also the title of a Mountain Goats C-90 sent by J. after I thanked him for zine-mentioning them in passing, which led to a local friend giving me my first MGs C-90. (Jane-Joshua's selection was indeed "Even Better.")
I recommended Why Music Sucks and xpost Radio On to him; he commented on both in Sugar High(!?), and wrote for both, while already appearing in the Voice. Great stuff in Spin too, and very eventually Tweeted an epic saga about parting ways with with them/it. We both got very busy and out of touch, except for a few (def. pre-Elon) Tweets. now I regret that more than ever, of course, but it seemed "natural" at the time. Very rich, robust, elegant, no-BS poet in my reading too.

I did think that some of his political comments went too far, missed the mark, in a kind of grandstanding imprecision that his music writing less often fell into and his poetry never did, as far as I know.

Forgot about Sugar High--I don't think I ever saw it, although there's a chance I have an issue buried somewhere downstairs.

Oh, his political remarks were miles better and more accurate than his music tastes. At least in the past fifteen years, the man was a poptimist to the point of parody— in fact it was our largest sticking point, and what we argued about the most. Hearing an avowed anti-state communist defend Taylor Swift was funny, though.

That an anti-state commie shouldn't like pop is just regressive as an opinion.

Okay, I never said I didn’t like pop though.

from one of my best friends, who also butted heads with Joshua (remember I was actually actively friends with the guy) on this same subject:

“This was a man who, fourteen or so years ago when I'd just joined FB and knew only, in the poetry world, the young post-conceptual crew, relentlessly trolled me on FB for posting obscure "hipster" music on threads about my DJ nights. He was serious. His absurd poptimism was totally serious. (He had terrible taste in music. Check out the Dirty Vegas acoustic tunes he loved so much). He shat constantly on my posts about cool music I'd dug up, all these people who'd never cracked the market, who'd never made it, this underclass of unknown folks whose records I'd be playing in my dj night. "Why listen to Michael Hurley when you can listen to Ricky Skaggs?" Why shit on somebody else's evident love of music? What's gained? When Other Music closed in NYC, I posted something sad about how that place had turned me on to so much music from around the world in the late 90s/ early 21st century, he responded by declaring the closing a joyous occasion, then followed up with a post on his own wall mocking people who listened to... free jazz, unknown African and Middle Eastern and Asian music, obscure soul, and so on... Hipsters, only hipsters. What bummed me out the most about his trolling me was how evident it was that I actually loved this music - we both loved music, wasn't that obvious? I wasn't trying to fool anybody. This wasn't hipster bullshit. I loved sharing music, was making the effort to put cool shit I found on SoundCloud, making it all downloadable for free, talking to people around the world who were into this music -- communing with people, in other words -- and Joshua's response was you could get it all better from the Dixie Chicks (as if we couldn't *also* listen to them). He could've just said nothing.”

This friend is the one who made me realize my appreciation for Carly Rae Jepsen, so it’s not like he is anti-pop. We are both sad about Joshua’s passing but also realistic about his myopia on certain issues.

https://slate.com/culture/2015/07/howiquitspin-is-university-of-california-davis-professor-joshua-clover-s-200-tweet-story-of-quitting-his-job-at-spin-after-september-11-2001.html

is

is there no other thread for this fuckin carry on lads

xpost Not coming here to poop on the dead but wtf … “myopia” seems too kind!

There, FWIW, this ILM thread

the "jane dark" question everyone but me already knows the answer to...

is

is there no other thread for this fuckin carry on lads

youve taken me up wrong there tabes

if an over and back discussion about someone who has passed and is known/familiar or dear to posters starts to get into their pros and cons, to do it over an extended period itt seems off to me

is that a fairer interjection

yes, makes sense!

look when i go, ye can have it all out here

is that fair

deems, i have nothing but affection for you, fwiw

"he responded by declaring the closing a joyous occasion, then followed up with a post on his own wall mocking people who listened to... free jazz, unknown African and Middle Eastern and Asian music, obscure soul, and so on... Hipsters, only hipsters."

As you say its just some light trolling. A lot of ppl with tastes of the 'unknown' variety get really angry at popular styles so some in the other direction feels ok.

xp 😎

Brian Montana early guitarist for Possessed … killed by cops

ah, I heard about that on the radio.. a drunken argument about a neighbor's tree? Weird story

jill sobule, 66, in a house fire

jesus. rip

Oh hell, that’s terrible

She was scheduled to open for the Mekons in June here, was she touring with them?

She had just finished touring with the Fixx.

Oh man, her big album is about to get reissued and her off-broadway show is about to release its cast album

https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/ruth-buzzi-dead-laugh-in-comedian-1236384980/

People you thought...

I supposed dated, but still kills me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_drrJx_OvM

I guess I'm young enough never to have seen that before, but old enough to laugh at it.

(Not that it's particularly offensive or anything, just very 'dad joke')

There was always the implication that Artie Johnson may have been more than just a dirty old man who said stuff...I think; I might be wrong there.

PBS News Hour just referred to Ruth Buzzy as a 'comédienne,' a term definitely still in use during her career but pretty dated at this point

Jo Anne Worley and Goldie Hawn, still going strong.

Carol Burnett as well

Was thinking of Laugh-In women; I knew Judy Carne was dead, sorry to see Theresa Graves too.

I only knew Josh's music writing from zines, Voice, and Spin, had no idea about later trolling etc. It's not wrong to talk about shortcomings here, as long as such comments are fact-based, on personal experience especially.

^^ I agree with this

https://bluesrockreview.com/2025/05/joe-louis-walker-dies-at-75.html

Blues singer Joe Louis Walker died from cardiac-related issues