Archive for April, 2010
Type O Negative’s Pete Steele Dead at 48
The one with the wicked chops.
That was a shocker.
A musician I hadn’t thought about in 10 years or so, except while briefly remembering high school as I thumbed through my CD collection, died last night of heart failure at age 48.
Even though I lost track of Type O Negative shortly after World Coming Down, hearing about Steele’s death was a little like hearing about one of your favorite countries being bombed, or finding out the college pizza place you spent all your time in closed down. Hearing he was 48 was a little weird, too — I’d always thought that guy had to be immortal or something.
The 6 -foot-7 bass player and lead singer was originally named Petrus T. Ratajczyk, hailed from Brooklyn, was a control freak, and had a baritone voice that could be mistaken for a bus driving by. Rumors of his death circulated in 2005, but it was found to be a publicity stunt related to the band’s signing to a new label. He also apparently posed in Playgirl as another stunt. Fascinating.
Not having the time to write a proper post just now, I’ll refer you to the stories written by NY Daily News and Rolling Stone.
You can also read the mournful posts on the band’s Myspace page, or visit their forums, where I’m sure some asshole will stir up shit eventually.
RIP, Steele.
R.I.P. Malcolm McLaren
Malcolm McLaren, the producer and band manager known for being the brains behind the Sex Pistols and the New York Dolls, died of cancer this morning in New York. He was 64.
McLaren gained notoriety after the Sex Pistols single “God Save the Queen” was banned in 1977 by the BBC and the Independent Broadcasting Authority, yet still managed to reach number 2 in the UK charts. He is also known for projects such as his solo albums Duck Rock and Waltz Darling, as well as his Zombies/Esther Bigeou collage “About Her,” from the soundtrack of Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill 2.
More about his intriguing life story can be found in the links below:
Crappy Band Names Trump Indie Appeal
Preface: Since I haven’t had time to write anything in quite a while (try maintaining your music blog as an LA career-type whose spare time can be measured in half-seconds), here’s a re-post of an article I penned for Cinema Blend, back when — well, back when I wrote for them. Enjoy.
We know about physical, people-type overpopulation. That’s when there are too many new neighbors moving in all at once – then their cars use up all the convenient street parking, grassy fields turn into slum hives, and suddenly one-bedroom apartments with no washer or dryer rent for 1,700 a month.
Well, as you might have guessed, the same thing can happen in music. It’s what happens when too many indie rock bands form all at the same time, and with all the same ideas. What logically follows is a phenomenon pretty nicely stated as rock-overpopulation, or to be more succinct, “overrockulation.” When overrockulation occurs, bands start elbowing each other off the good rock real estate by using up all of the good riffs, taking all the cool styles, and – in the most prominent and embarrassing manifestation – taking all the good band names. What’s left behind are the cardboard-shack and overpass-tent band names, the 12-syllable fixer-uppers that are so far out there it’s impossible to imagine moving into one by choice. It’s a shameful degradation.
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