Disco great Donna Summer has passed away at the age of 63. I think the most appropriate celebration of her life would be to do as our publisher, Kenny Stocker, just instructed our staff: "Let's have a moment of silence and then do some disco dancing!"

Possum Dixon guitarist Celso Chavez, who passed away yesterday.

I've been reminiscing about the 90's far too much lately, and in doing so, I've been revisiting a lot of the records that turned me on my head in high school and college. Amongst those records is a total underdog of a band worth championing, Los Angeles' Possum Dixon. Managing to blend The Cars' new wave, the raw jangle of The Animals, the hopped-up libido of the Violent Femmes and the Pixies manic unpredictability, Possum Dixon had some songs that charted well enough on college/modern rock radio but never quite found the right rhythm to sustaining it all. Almost 20 years after the release of their debut album, it still sounds like an out of control joyride through restless days spent in office jobs and nights spent in dingy nightclubs and crumbling stucco apartments.

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Renowned banjo man Earl Scruggs, member of Bill Monroe's Foggy Mountain Boys Blue Grass Boys, and innovator of three-finger banjo picking, aka "Scruggs Style," died yesterday of natural causes at 88.

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Yesterday I was out to lunch when a visitor stopped by our office to hand deliver a letter to me. Susan Gemson is a longtime Monkees fans; when she heard of Davy Jones' death last week, she was inspired to write a personal eulogy of sorts, recounting her experience seeing the Monkees live in concert at the Seattle Coliseum in 1967, and wanted to share it with me. With her permission I'm sharing it here on Reverb:

He was the Best; Davy Jones is laid to Rest

Many people have heroes for different reasons. Davy Jones of The Monkees was and is one of mine. Yesterday, February 29, 2012, Davy Jones passed into a certain "Rock and Roll Heaven." He died of a heart attack at his home in sunny yet sad Florida.

I grew up with The Monkees. At the tender age of 12, I announced to my family band that I wanted to go see them perform at the Seattle Coliseum. My father drove me to Bell, Book, and Candle, a place in Bellevue where the Monkee tickets could be bought. When I got there, I held my 7th grade breath and found out that yes, there were tickets left to be lassoed! I paid the clerk my money, and, I kissed the tickets, lovingly, while my father smiled.

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Last night I was driving home and listening to 104.5 when the Monkees' "Daydream Believer" came on, which caused me to promptly turn up the volume and sing along, loudly. Now I find out that Davy Jones, original teen idol, former lead singer of the Monkees, and the reason that David Bowie is called David Bowie, died this morning at 66 after suffering a heart attack in his sleep. Jones is the first of the four Monkees to pass away. I'll miss Davy's sweet voice. I suggest we all take a moment out of our mornings to listen to "Daydream Believer," a song that my co-worker Erika Hobart describes as "my go-to karaoke song."

Found this on Facebook this morning. Happy Tuesday, y'all.

That big ugly elevated road thing!

That's right: our beloved crumbling, car-carrying monstrosity, which linked narcotic-hot corner Belltown to sports stadium/strip club/wholesale grocery outlet hotbed SoDo--making manageable an otherwise time-consuming bulk-mac-and-cheese-to-crack-rock-supplier run for any nudie-bar patron running into "extra innings"--has finally come crashing down. Here to capture the nostalgia is local hip hop group The GNU Deal, who recently eulogized The Viaduct with their new song..."The Viaduct".

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Capitol Hill Seattle blog is reporting today that the neighborhood's long-running DIY all-ages show space known as Healthy Times Fun Club is slated for eviction due to years of modifications not cleared with the city's Department of Planning and Development:

Given the size and layout of the space, the basement could not be used for sleeping or as a gathering space without obtaining a permit to upgrade the space with proper exiting and other life safety requirements. The owner has given the tenants a notice to vacate by the end of the month and will use the basement as storage. Our notice of violation was issued on 10/12/11 with a compliance date of 11/14/11.

Bummer. But in a way, this is all part of a DIY space's natural life-cycle--it's not really a punk venue until it's been shut down by the DPD, developers, or the cops, is it?

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It's being widely reported today that Ed Banger artist DJ Mehdi (born Mehdi Favéris-Essadi) has died following a fall from the roof of his home in France. He was 34.

Some years ago, I caught Ed Banger's first DJ tour of North America up in Vancouver, B.C. This was before Justice's album broke and before their headlining tour with the fake amps and the light-up cross; this tour was basically just a party, built on the momentum of the label's string of early 12" singles, with all the Ed Banger guys, from Justice on up to label boss Busy P doing DJ sets. It was a rave, it was a riot, all the kids in the crowd were throwing their hands up in cross formation, and DJ Mehdi was ruling the place. I think I remember him jumping up and standing on the DJ tables at one point, but my memory could be fuzzy on that point. What I remember for sure is that he was the DJs' DJ that night: Everybody played fine sets, but Mehdi dropped bombs, and he did so with a dexterous skill, impeccable taste (from hip-hop to funk to big beat and house), and with a big grin. He's gone too soon, and he will be missed. RIP.

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Sleepy Eyes of Death's Final Show
Neumos
Friday, August 27

Sleepy Eyes of Death died as they lived: triumphing over technical difficulties. On Friday night at Neumos, the local synth-rock scorers made it all of one song into their set before being sidelined by system failure. It was almost like a spoof, or it would've been if the delay had only lasted a minute. Instead, several minutes went by while Sleepy Eyes and stage crew poked around their banks of analog gear in the now-dissipating fog and lights that had preceded the band onto the stage. Someone from the band got on the mike to make light of the situation and its historic precedents: "Last time we played this song, the fire marshal came after 15 seconds, so we haven't played the whole thing in four or five years . . . Remember, the longer we're up here, the longer we're a band; the sooner we play our set, the sooner we're done." Eventually, Tyler Swan of opening act Flexions (and fellow analogue daisy-chainers Truckasaurus) was called to the stage, and with the help of his MPC sampler (presumably to act as a MIDI brain?), Sleepy Eyes of Death got back to the business of breaking up.

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