Category Archives: Notable Passings

RIP Scott Weiland, 1967-2015

Scott Weiland has passed away while on tour at the age of 48 (the New York Times Obituary is here). Best known as the lead singer for 1990s hit-making machine Stone Temple Pilots, Weiland had a strong and versatile rock voice, a flamboyantly aggressive stage presence and a penchant for dark lyrics. But he was also a long time substance abuser, including periods of serious heroin use, and that definitely compromised his abilities on stage if not in the studio. In fact, he was kicked out of STP more than once and also by the “supergroup” Velvet Revolver (basically Guns ‘n Roses without Axl Rose), the band he joined in 2002 after he was booted by STP for the first time. In later years he revealed he had been sexually assaulted as a young boy so if he went looking for something strong to numb that pain while appearing to live the “glamorous” drug-fueled life of a rock star who could really blame him?

A distant sixth behind Nirvana, Soundgarden, Screaming Tress, Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains in the rankings of the biggest Grunge Heavyweights, Stone Temple Pilots were also seen by many as opportunistic California carpetbaggers as opposed to genuine practitioners of Seattle’s own proud hometown music genre. But on any given single or any given concert performance STP could really rock it and in fact they brought a pleasingly tacky and grandiose arena-oriented feel to the scene. Their first two (and best) albums, Core (1992) and Purple (1994), show such a dichotomy of sonic approaches — Core almost like parody version of Pearl Jam with a harder edge and nastier themes and Purple departing comfortably for polished power pop territory — that the distinct impression is not so much a band wedded to a particular genre but rather a band without a real identity yet still making music so well-crafted and executed that they can’t help but churn out huge hits. So much so that for some of us who were young and impressionable in the 90s, STP’s music is indelibly part of the soundtrack of our youth right alongside their more highly regarded rivals.

And if Weiland’s voice was not really a match in distinctiveness when pitted against Chris Cornell, Eddie Vedder, Mark Lanegan, Layne Staley or even the shrieking of Kurt Cobain, he was nonetheless a top-notch rock frontman with the ability to cover a wide range from laid back nasal to growling bellow to belted out ballad. Those first two STP albums hold up remarkably well some 20+ years later despite — or maybe because of — their lack of stylistic similarity. And Scott Weiland’s formidable vocals are a big reason why. If his subsequent career and life was something of a mess and neither he or the band could ever match those heights again, well, that’s hardly a unique story in Rock ‘n Roll history is it? The simple fact is that Scott Weiland had the chops and sheer will to make himself into a rock star, performed like a rock star and definitely lived like a rock star. It’s also a fact that his chosen vocation probably killed him before he turned 50. It’s sad but certainly not unexpected. Weiland lived longer than most people thought he ever would and a hell of a lot longer than his contemporaries Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley. Nobody ever said rock stars are promised a ripe old age, particularly those who don’t change their wicked ways. And once again, for the umpteenth time, we have proof of that. But what else would Scott Weiland have done with his life if not live fast, die young and leave a pile of hit records behind? Would he — could he — really have done it any differently?

 

RIP Justin Wilson — 1978 – 2015

Very sad news today from the world of motorsport — racing driver Justin Wilson has died after suffering severe head injuries in last Sunday’s IndyCar race at Pocono Raceway. The English racer was struck by a large piece of debris at speed when Sage Karam’s car crashed into the wall late in the race. He was airlifted to nearby Lehigh Valley Hospital directly from the track but remained in a coma and passed away this past Monday evening. He is survived by his wife Julia, his two young daughters and his younger brother Stefan, who is also a professional racer. Wilson was 37.

IndyCar’s official statement is here.

The family’s statement with their charitable wishes is here.

Justin Wilson was an extremely talented driver who competed in the highest forms of motorsport on several different teams and in several different disciplines. Along the way, he overcame numerous serious injuries to continue racing, his lifelong calling. Working his way up through karting and the lower development divisions, Wilson then won the 2001 Formula 3000 championship and then got a Formula 1 ride with Minardi in 2003. Due to his unusual height — the lanky Englishman was a very un-pilot like 6’4″ — Minardi designed the car around Wilson. After outperforming senior teammate Jos Verstappen, Wilson jumped to Jaguar for the last races of the season, scoring his first Championship points at the US Grand Prix at Indianapolis. But due to that odd F1 paradox of talented drivers with insufficient sponsorship or personal funds being passed over for less gifted pay drivers, Wilson was bounced from his F1 seat and came to America to find work. And find it he did. He got a ride in Champ Car (precursor to indyCar) in 2004 and won his first race in that series in 2005 in Toronto. Wilson finished runner up or 3rd in that championship from 2005-7.

JustinWilson2

Wilson continued to race in America when Champ Car merged with the Indy Racing League to from today’s IndyCar series in 2008. He kept winning and worked hard to improve on the alien American oval tracks but always had trouble finding a long-term drive, probably due to the lack of personal money he could bring to a team. His management group eventually resorted to selling “shares” in Wilson to support his racing career. But like a throwback to a 1960s or 70s driver, Wilson hustled and competed in all forms of the sport, carrying his helmet to the 24 Hours of Le Mans early in his career, a win at the 2012 24 Hours of Daytona after several tries, multiple Indianapolis 500 starts, V8 Supercars in Australia and even Formula E this year. Simply put, Wilson was a professional driver who could make any car go faster and improve the performance of a chassis through his experience and valuable technical feedback, particularly on road courses.

And that’s how he came to be driving for Andretti Autosport this past Sunday after being signed for the last five races of the season. Continue reading →

RIP Jules Bianchi, 1989 – 2015

Formula 1 driver Jules Bianchi has passed away at the age of 25. Bianchi succumbed to the severe head injury he received last October at Suzuka in the waning stages of the Japanese Grand Prix, when his Marussia collided with a recovery vehicle on the track under rainy Yellow Flag conditions. Due to the low profile of F1 cars, his head struck the lower edge of the crane at a high rate of speed dealing him the diffuse axonal injury from which he would never recover. Jules was a highly regarded, up-and-coming pilot with connections to Ferrari and after scoring his and Marussia’s first-ever Championship points at Monaco last year it seemed as if the sky was the limit for his career in motorsport. We send our condolences to his family, friends and colleagues and we mourn his premature passing. It seems profoundly unfair that someone so young and talented should have his life cut short in this fashion. But his chosen vocation was a dangerous one. Despite the fact that there had been no fatalities in F1 in 20 years, we can never loose sight of the fact that these drivers put their lives on the line every time they step into the cockpit despite how “easy” it looks on TV.

Jules Bianchi (FRA), Marussia F1 Team. Suzuka Circuit accident.

Jules Bianchi (FRA), Marussia F1 Team. Suzuka Circuit accident 2014.

It has to be said that the FIA’s report on the incident did not exactly cover the organization in glory. It firmly laid the blame on Jules for not lifting enough with the yellow flags waving, although there were conflicting reports as to where exactly a driver might be able to see the yellows and how much he was required to lift. Continue reading →

Notable passings: RIP Marcello Pisani, 1956-2015

The Vintage Rolex world has lost a titan — the great Marcello Pisani has passed away. The legendary Italian collector and veritable encyclopedia of arcane Rolex knowledge made his mark with his unparalleled research into special issue watches such as COMEX and British Military-issued Submariners. His willingness to share what he’d learned with his fellow collectors great and small really set him apart and made him the go-to guy for technical and historic questions, as well as pinpointing those all-important identifiers of authenticity.

I first encountered Marcello about a decade ago as I began my obsession with Vintage Rolex. Through private emails and public interactions on the vital Vintage Rolex Forum I can honestly say that I learned more from Marci than from any other source. More importantly perhaps, I learned what questions should be asked and how to go about researching the puzzles that presented themselves, many of which have now been solved thanks in no small part to M. Pisani. To say he was a mentor to me is a great understatement and yet it’s absolutely a fact that I was but one star in a veritable constellation of questing collectors helped by Marci. So you can multiply his edifying influence on me a thousandfold to get a rough idea as to how many lives he influenced and how much knowledge he shared.

It’s true that in recent years we fell out somewhat, mainly due to our disagreements over the meaning of the appearance of the Underline on Rolex dials circa 1963. Continue reading →

RIP B.B. King, 1925 — 2015

B.B. King, one of the legends of the Blues and arguably the man who did the most to popularize it with a diverse worldwide audience, has died at the age of 89. Sometimes overlooked by Blues “purists”, King was nevertheless an authentic Mississippi Delta original, albeit a performer who incorporated external influences such as Big Band Jazz and R&B in creating a signature sound with broad popular appeal. A tireless, good humored performer forever on the road playing one-night stands first to all-black audiences then to all comers, B.B. King’s very endurance insured that he would be able to capitalize on the big Blues revival of the 1960s. Sure enough, his biggest hit, the seminal “The Thrill Is Gone”, came in 1969, over 20 years after he had left a life of sharecropping and poverty on the Delta for the lucrative rewards of DJing and performing in Memphis, Tennessee.

While not name-checked as frequently as some other Blues guitar legends, King’s expressive playing style was nonetheless influential on generations of musicians. He made his big, curved Gibsons, always named Lucille, sing and cry with restrained, elegant power. His wonderfully well-modulated yet still raw singing style was indelibly unique — when you heard him sing an opening verse you knew right away just who was doing the singing. And by dint of his longevity, his many skills as a performer and showman and his pure enthusiastic passion for playing B. B. King came to embody “The Blues” for generations of listeners.

The excellent multimedia New York Times obituary is here.

RIP Leonard Nimoy, 1931 — 2015

Leonard Nimoy, an actor who became a worldwide cultural icon with his multifaceted portrayal of Mr. Spock in the groundbreaking 1960s sci-fi series Star Trek, died this past Friday at the age of 83. Nimoy’s characterization of the starship Enterprise’s First Officer functioned as the calm, intellectual super ego influence on Captain Kirk in diametric opposition to the id persona of the hyper-emotional Dr. “Bones” McCoy. The only alien crewmember in the original series, Nimoy gave creative life to the Vulcan philosophy of anti-emotionalism, logic and intellectual rigor and portrayed the consummate outsider bemusedly observing the confusing passions and paradoxes of the human species. In the series, the Vulcan race had long ago determined to exercise rigid control of their emotions in order to put an end the destructive internecine conflicts of their race. But as a mixed race man whose mother was from Earth, Nimoy also gave subtle expression to the human impulses beneath the surface of Spock’s greenish, pointy-eared exterior, which he sometimes struggled to control.

leonard-nimoy_spock

With its futuristic vision of the USS Enterprise as a powerful but peaceful galactic explorer, representative of a vast United Federation of Planets including an Earth that had survived near-apocalyptic conflicts in the 20th and 21st centuries, Gene Roddenberry’s idealistic creation was not an overnight sensation. Slowly but inexorably it gained in popularity, growing from a cult following during its short 3-year 1966-69 run on NBC into a global phenomenon, the relentless result of non-stop syndication, animated spin-offs, novelizations and popular paraphernalia & technical literature. By the time Star Trek was reborn cinematically a decade later in the aftermath of the mega-success of Star Wars, an entirely new audience was ready to receive its tales of multi-ethnic, multi-cultural space adventure, which Roddenberry sometimes slyly referred to as simply a “Western in space.” As the myriad sequels, prequels and entirely new associated TV series proved, Star Trek may have started out as geek culture but there was a hunger across a large segment of the world for this intelligently thought out future of our civilization and its flawed but noble heroes and charismatic super villains. And as geek became chic and the brainy outsider became the unlikely hero of a new industrial revolution in the Computer and Internet Age, it’s no great stretch to believe that it was Nimoy’s characterization of Spock, cerebral and outwardly implacable with hidden reserves of humanity, that helped inspire future computer titans like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs in their youth. Building upon The Space Race mania of the 60s, Star Trek helped make science and technology as cool and appealing as the astronauts did — just ask all those fans who wound up working at NASA and in other engineering and technological fields. And, as not only the Enterprise’s First Officer but also its Chief Science Officer, no one was cooler than Mr. Spock.

The cast of the original Star Trek series and creator Gene Roddenberry meet the Space Shuttle Enterprise

The cast of the original Star Trek series and creator Gene Roddenberry meet the Space Shuttle Enterprise

Leonard Nimoy was also the cast member who had been with the franchise the longest, predating William Shatner’s Kirk and DeForest Kelley’s McCoy. Continue reading →

RIP Robin Williams — 1951-2014

Ok, I’ve been procrastinating on posting this because it is so fucking sad. Robin Williams died this August 11th of suicide by self-asphyxiation. The great actor and comedian had been battling depression, as well as falling off of the sobriety wagon in recent years. Williams was just 63 years old. His New York Times Obituary is here and a very good A.O. Scott appraisal with video is here.

Obviously the tragic irony of one of the world’s funniest men succumbing to depression is well-trod ground by now. To think that someone that successful and accomplished could not get the help they needed to make it through the darkness is simply frightening. But in the end we often walk alone in this world and what drives an amazing artist, which Williams undoubtedly was, can come from the dark places of insecurity and sadness deep within, even if the art in question is comedy with a capital C. I can’t think of another person funnier than Robin Williams when he was at his manic improvisatory best. If a talk show appearance can be called art, Williams performed it, on Carson or Letterman or a million other venues that should never have had room for such pocket Dada free associative miniature moments of brilliance. He enlivened the most mundane show business rituals with electric bolts of inspirational lightning. The sense that he was barely in control of his manic energies only added to the thrill ride.

As the years went by, well after his comet-like appearance on the scene in the late 1970s, Williams evinced a melancholy sensitivity in movies like Good Will Hunting, Awakenings and Dead Poets Society that saw him turning into a sounding board for people in need of compassion, especially young people, and an outsider’s point of view to deal with a stifling world. But that sad smile has been there from the start like the tears of Pagliacci, at least as far back as The World According to Garp, Moscow on the Hudson and bursting to raw fruition in Terry Gilliam’s revelatory The Fisher King. That undercurrent of melancholia was probably a major part of Williams as a person when he wasn’t “on”, obscured in the early days by his irrepressible, some would say uncontrollable, daffy genius when he seemed to be very nearly Bugs Bunny come to life. To be sure, Williams felt loss and sadness keenly through the years with the deaths of such friends as John Belushi, Andy Kaufman, Christopher Reeve and, most recently, his mentor and idol Jonathan Winters. Maybe we just didn’t want to believe that such real life losses would take their toll on our favorite comedian.

A genius in more ways than one, Williams’ gift must have also been something of a curse, creating the expectation in his audience that he must deliver to them transcendental moments of hilarity on demand and at all times. Continue reading →

RIP James Garner, 1928-2014

When James Garner passed away the other week at the age of 86 I felt as if I had lost a favorite uncle. Wry, worldly wise, down to earth, a little cynical, a little cranky, very funny and definitely a man’s man, Garner was a uniquely successful and uniquely American actor. The native Oklahoman started out in 1950s television after a very brief theater apprenticeship, and quickly achieved fame in Maverick as the title character Brett Maverick, the dapper and quick-witted Old West card sharp who preferred talking his way out of trouble to shooting. He then rose to stardom as a romantic lead and action star during the last gasp of the old Hollywood studio system: alongside Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson playing the Scrounger in the all-star POW epic The Great Escape and wooing Julie Andrews in Blake Edwards’ sly, sophisticated anti-war comedy, the Americanization of Emily (Garner’s own favorite film). After the excellent Western comedy Support Your Local Sheriff and a foreshadowing turn as a bemused Marlowe, he found cultural immortality back on TV as the iconic and perpetually harassed ex-cop, ex-con gumshoe Jim Rockford.

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

For those of us who grew up in the 1970s, The Rockford Files was omnipresent, from the jaunty Mike Post theme song after the answering machine sequence to the initial run from 1974-1980 to the endless repeats in syndication. The series gleefully embraced a non-glamorous LA with the laconic and perpetually broke private eye working low rent bars and strip clubs while living in a cheap trailer home on Malibu beach, getting his meals from taco and hotdog stands and bouncing checks at the local grocery. It was a unique persona for a hero PI, totally at odds with, say, the slick rich kid mastermind of George Peppard’s Banacek. But then, maybe that’s why The Rockford Files went on to television immortality while Banacek, for all its tacky turtlenecked pleasures, is more of a fun footnote. There was just something so original about Jim Rockford as a hero: the loud sports coats with wide lapels; the wrongful conviction that gave him his cynical perspective; the beatdowns given and received; the clever ruses and identity games when on assignment; his meddling and very funny father (Noah Beery); and always a good old fashioned car chase in the mysteriously overpowered and rubber screeching gold Pontiac Firebird.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pruex3pgX1g

I told you that theme song was omnipresent! Garner was, in fact, an excellent driver and racer — he caught the bug starring in John Frankenheimer’s seminal racing movie, Grand Prix, competing in several grueling Baja 1000s thereafter — and did much of his own driving on the series, as well as many of his own stunts. Continue reading →

RIP Bobby Womack, 1944 – 2014

R&B and Soul legend Bobby Womack has passed away at the age of 70. One of the classic “middleweights” of the African-American music scene in the 1960s & 70s, Womack made hugely popular singles that, like Tyrone Davis and Johnny Taylor, charted big time in R&B but did not have the crossover appeal of a Marvin Gaye or Al Green as radio was becoming more & more re-segregated.

Mentored by the legendary Sam Cooke, Womack followed a similar trajectory by emerging from strong Gospel roots to perform “profane” secular music. That connection was further cemented when Womack married Cooke’s widow not long after the latter’s shooting death, a move which many found distastefully opportunistic and led to de facto blacklisting by the music industry. But, as Womack always maintained, it was probably just a case of two people devastated by the loss of the most important person in their lives who found solace with each other.

In any event, Womack recovered after many years in the shadows doing important back up work with the likes of Sly and the Family Stone and Janis Joplin to release two exceptionally strong albmus in the early 1970s, Communication and Understanding. These yielded a string of major hits including “That’s the Way I Feel About ‘Cha”, “Woman’s Gotta Have It” and the quirky “Harry Hippie”. Womack also scored with the socially conscious “Across 110th Street”, the theme to a mediocre 1972 Blaxploitation movie that was reused 20 years later by Quentin Tarantino for Jackie Brown, his excellent homage to that unique genre.

Womack stayed busy and relevent to the end, recording with the Rolling Stones, The Roots, Mos Def and Gorillaz among many others. But it is for his special run of 1960s and 70s hits that he will be best remembered. One thing’s for sure: ain’t nobody gonna forget about Bobby Womack.

His full New York Times obituary is here.

Notable passings — Tony Palladino

In memoriam of a family friend of tomvox’s we post this New York Times obit of self-taught graphic arts legend, one of the true “Mad Men” in 1960s and 70s advertising and a stalwart at the School of Visual Arts for over 50 years, Tony Palladino.

Tony Palladino, Designer of ‘Psycho’ Lettering, Dies at 84

Tony Palladino, an innovative graphic designer and illustrator who created one of the most recognizable typographic titles in publishing and film history, the off-kilter, violently slashed block-letter rendering of “Psycho,” died on May 14 in Manhattan. He was 84.

Mr. Palladino’s conception for “Psycho” originally appeared on the book jacket for Robert Bloch’s 1959 novel of that title, published by Simon & Schuster. For his 1960 film adaptation, Alfred Hitchcock purchased the rights to the lettering for its promotion, which influenced the opening credit sequence created by Saul Bass.

Mr. Palladino said the design — stark white letters torn and seemingly pasted together against a black background to resemble a ransom note — was intended to illustrate typographically the homicidal madness of the novel’s protagonist, Norman Bates.

“How do you do a better image of ‘Psycho’ than the word itself?” he said.

Read the complete NY Times obituary for this highly accomplished man here.