In a daring kiss-off to ideas like "current events" and "cultural relevance," The Hook announced in a June 20 blog post that former local and Love is a Mixtape author Rob Sheffield left Rolling Stone magazine for a position as a columnist at Maxim’s Blender music magazine. The announcement comes roughly two and a half months after the New York Post announced the same damned thing.
Rob Sheffield: Also reportedly eats, sleeps and breathes.
Those of you interested in digging through sloppy secondary sources can muddle through The Hook’s website to find a reproduction of Sheffield’s first column. The rest of you can read it from its source right here. (A typically cheeky send-up of Madonna’s latest record, although C-VILLE editor Cathy Harding offers a critique that might interest those of you frequenting dance nights around town.)
By now, you’re wondering why I’m essentially copying The Hook and announcing a blog post days after their late entry. My initial plans to mention the two-month-old Sheffield piece were foiled when I stumbled across Fuller Up, The Dead Musician Directory, and learned of the deaths of a few musicians that I felt obliged to report to you. Without further ado, I give you:
Feedback’s List of Musicians Who Died Years Ago, Listed in Order of Discovery:
John Lennon
Beethoven
Jimi Hendrix
Every composer who was alive in the 19th century (!)
Janis Joplin
Every composer who was alive in the 18th century (!!!)
Jim Morrison
Kurt Cobain
…
While this news devastated me for a few days, I found solace in the chords of survivors, the songs of life—from musicians like Elliott Smith, George Harrison, Bo Diddley, Tim Buckley, Jeff Buckley, Otis Redding, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Stevie Ray Vaughn, AC/DC’s Bon Scott, Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham, Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Metallica’s Cliff Burton, T. Rex’s Marc Bolan, The Exploding Hearts, Gram Parsons, and Easy E.
UPDATE: Oh. My. God.
All this talk about death reminds me: I spent a bit of time on Saturday night in the studio with Accordion Death Squad, who are down one fiddler (the dreadlocked Gus) but soldiering on with their new record. The Death Squad is recording at the Packing Shed, a homemade studio above Rapunzel’s Coffee run by Gabriel Taylor. I spent enough time with the group to see guitarist Billy arrive with bottles of vodka and cranberry juice ("Instruments," he said), listen to him lay down bass and surf-y guitar lines for the song "Panna Czinka," and talk with Rat, the group’s accordion and piano player, about upcoming plans. The Death Squad travels to Vermont for the Northeast Kingdom Music Festival in August, but hopes to have the record finished before then, so watch for gigs in town. Photos from the Packing Shed are here.