dearly beloved…enough already!

2016 – the year of the dead icon…

…seriously.

this has been ridonkulous. i can’t help but wonder who’s next…or are we done? can we finally be done? it’s not like this year we’ve just lost the guy who played the “rhythm fiddle” track on the devil went down to georgia here. this has been the year of the dead headliner. and i think all major genres of music have taken their hit. for fuck’s sake, in the last six months we’ve lost:

lemmy (1945-2015) – squeaking in just before the 2016 line we have the man that started it all. thrash metal, punk, so MANY genres and bands owe their inspiration to this guy. i saw his last austin performance as my first and only motörhead show.

david bowie (1947-2016) – what genre ISN’T effected by this one? okay, maybe zydeco. but all of alternative music, plus rock, plus pop, plus…just…everything. he scored for broadway. he sold out stadiums. he was a legend among legends. and he wasn’t the last one to leave during 2016.

glenn frey (1948-2016) – i feel bad for glenn frey…not just because he passed, but because in most years the death of one of the main songwriters and founders of a group like the eagles would be a big deal. and i GUESS it is, but compared to some of the other names on this list who not only sold out arenas with just them, but with just a single word for a name (lemmy, bowie, et al) he almost became an afterthought here.

phife dawg (aka malik taylor) (1970-2016) – this one scared me for a couple reasons. see, my mom only lived to be fifty-five. i turn forty-five this summer. what if i only have a decade left? how can i make it awesome? and typing the “1970” on this one brought that all home for me. couple that with the fact that of the six in the list, i only got to see three live and a tribe called quest was the one i saw twice. spooky.

merle haggard (1937-2016) – we had mutual friends (true – kramer and i are friends with his old piano player, whom i used to do a radio show with) but i never got to see him live, i don’t think. i worked a lot of random country shows in the early 2000s, but i don’t THINK he was at any of ’em. might have been and i’m just forgetting, though. hey, he wasn’t the only one who had to drink to get through the (not so) giddy thrill of a live country music show.

and finally…

prince rogers nelson (1958-2016) – there was a show i lamented missing at sxsw a few years ago where prince played at one of my favorite venues (la zona rosa) and briefly reunited a tribe called quest opened up. i hated missing it to see tribe again, and i’d always wanted to see prince. missed it. now it’s lost. enough dead musicians already, damn it!