The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (308 page)

Friday 9

Nidge Miller

(Alan Nigel Miller - Derbyshire, England, 21 November 1958)

Blitz

One of the more reviled factions of Britain’s second-wave punk scene was the Oi! movement that split the genre’s camps around the turn of the 1980s.

Because its members were predominantly skinheads, Blitz (previously XS Rhythm) were often wrongly pigeonholed into what was effectively an extreme right-wing movement. Guitarist Nidge Miller was quick to denounce this suggestion with a reasoned argument, not to mention a six-foot-two black roadie to help dispel a few prejudices. Indeed, Miller insisted that Blitz were simply a ‘punk’ band – and, as it turned out, a fairly successful one. With most of the new wave’s early protagonists having moved on to other styles, bands like Blitz carried forward a rawer, no-nonsense sound driven by their dissatisfaction with the then-current Tory government. During 1982–83, Miller and his band saw their debut album
Never Surrender
sell in the thousands, cracking the UK Top Thirty. This was bolstered by a series of singles including the title cut, ‘Warriors,’ ‘New Age’ and ‘Telecommunications’ all reaching the UK Indie Top Five – a serious result for a provincial punk act.

Inevitably, changing attitudes saw Blitz disappear after a couple more years, though Miller – now a proud longhair – returned with a new line-up during the nineties. He was also a long, long way from his Derbyshire roots by the time he was able to live out his lifelong dream of touring the USA.

Tragically, this was also to be the venue for his passing: an intoxicated Nidge Miller died instantly when he was struck by a car while cavorting on the freeway in Austin County, Texas. Blitz had just two more dates of their tour to fulfil.

Wednesday 14

John O’Banion

(Kokomo, Indiana, 16 February 1947)

(Today’s Children)

A similar fate befell popular singer and actor John O’Banion – however, in this case, his passing fell just two days ahead of his sixtieth birthday.

O’Banion showed promise at a young age, performing theatre as a teenager as well as fronting his own pop act (delighting in the name ‘Hog Honda & The Chain Guards’), before hosting radio and television shows at the age of just twenty. An early fan was influential NBC talk-show anchor Johnny Carson, who spotted O’Banion singing with orchestra-leader Doc Severinsen’s band, Today’s Children. He immediately offered the young singer a slot on his show. O’Banion soon became something of a customary face on TV, winning the first-ever
Star Search,
and appearing regularly with chat stalwarts Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas. Although his debut solo record
John O’Banion
(Elektra, 1981) received generally good notices – and even spawned a national hit in ‘Love You Like I Never Loved Before’ – O’Banion struggled to maintain a solid profile in the pop industry and disappeared after two more albums. (He found better favour in Japan, where several of his records went gold.)

The singer returned to work the US cabaret circuit during the mid-nineties, and during such a tour a car hit him in New Orleans. Suffering blunt-force trauma, John O’Banion died from his injuries some time afterwards at his Los Angeles home.

DEAD INTERESTING!

DANCING WITH THE DEVIL?

The years 2006-10 were particularly grim for Mexican dance music–during this time, at least
twenty-one
prominent artists became victims in a spate of grisly murders.

In August 2006, singer Trigo Figueroa was shot following a concert in Reynosa, while banda music heart-throb Valentin Elizalde (1/2/79–25/11/06) was similarly gunned down in Tamaulipas, along with his chauffeur and assistant–allegedly by a notorious cartel he was believed to have antagonised in song. (His relative, singer Carlos Ocaranza, died in a similar way three years later.) The following month, Javier Morales Gomez of Los Implacables del Norte was shot dead in a Michoacan park, and, in June 2007, four members of the group Los Padrinos de la Sierra were assassinated in the state of Durango.

Later in the year, flamboyant duranguense musician and K-Paz de la Sierra leader Sergio Gómez (2/6/73–2/12/07) was tortured and killed by a drug gang after ignoring a warning not to play in Morelia. During the very same week, two other murders were reported: that of 28-year-old Zayda Peha–a lesser-known female singer who fronted Los Culpables (‘The Guilty Ones’)–herself among three people shot in related incidents at the border town of Matamoros; Los Conde trumpeter José Luis Aquino was also found suffocated and beaten to death in Oaxaca. Then, at the turn of 2008, young folk singer Jorge Antonio Sepulveda was shot to death on a road near Guasave, this in turn followed by the slaying of balladeer Jesus Rey David Alfaro Pulido–known popularly as ‘El Gallito’–along with his manager and assistant. Finally that spring, Brisas del Mar singer Nicolas Villanueva was killed
during a
performance in Quechultenango. (A few months were allowed to pass before four members of Los Herederos de Sinaloa were ambushed and killed as they emerged from a press interview in October.)

So, what provoked all these killings? Certain genres of Mexican popular music, such as the narcocorrido–a type of ballad documenting and glorifying the country’s seemingly endless drug wars–are likely to invoke crimes of this nature, and in many cases, singers will have an affiliation with individual cartels. So, when a drug baron ‘requests’ a tribute in song from one of the field’s key exponents, the request–as one might imagine–is seldom refused. The song in question is then usually given the added
frisson
of the denouncing of a rival, and, well, that’s when the fur really starts flying …

However, it appeared that by 2007 hitmen were beginning to broaden their target areas somewhat–and there became occasions when the violence, while just as horrific, was
not
so accountable. An example of this was the killing of four members of rising techno outfit Banda Fugaz on 18 February, the felony less-expected and the outrage arguably greater. The band–in their twenties and thirties–had been approached by their attackers after a successful concert in Las Caramicuas, near Puruaran, a town in the western state of Michoacan. After a brief altercation, the assailants produced AK-47 rifles, gunning the group down at close range. While all four musicians–Carlos Alberto Hurtado Lule, Noa Camargo Mendoza, Daniel Gomez Pimentel and Cristabel Juarez Serrano–died there and then, a fifth victim, 57-year-old manager Carlos Hurtado Gonzales, survived multiple gunshot wounds.

Despite the anger provoked throughout Mexico–and the fact that the same units have been suspected in several of these cases–by 2010 only one of the atrocities had seen a positive indictment, let alone a conviction. And the killings hadn’t stopped, either: in June of that year, singer Sergio Vega was shot dead by a rival gang as he returned from an interview in which he’d assured his legions of fans–and his elderly mother–that he was ‘still very much alive’ …

Narcocorrido artist Diego Rivas was assassinated alongside two companions in a drive-by shooting in Sinaloa in November 2011.

Thursday 22

Ian Wallace

(Bury, England, 29 September 1946)

King Crimson

(The Warriors)

(The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band)

(Peter Frampton)

(Bob Dylan)

(Ry Cooder)

(Don Henley)

(Various acts)

One of the most respected sticksmen in British rock music, Ian Wallace had his future carved out as early as his school days, which saw him play drums in a band called The Jaguars. It was his next act, however, that was to catch the ear: The (Electric) Warriors were signed to Decca in the early sixties, a sort of ‘reverse supergroup’ in that they contained future Yes singer Jon Anderson and his brother Tony (later of Los Bravos) and bassist David Foster (soon to join Badger), plus, of course, Wallace on percussion. The drummer then spent a short time touring Europe with The Big Sound, before his reputation as a session man soared back at home.

Ian Wallace was soon to join Viv Stanshall’s maverick-though-already-established act, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, his friendship with front man Neil Innes seeing the pair play together in the largely forgotten The World. Then Wallace received the call to join King Crimson. Although he can only be heard on one actual studio recording –
Islands
(1971) – Wallace was an integral part of Crimson’s live show, which was to wow US audiences in 1972. At the end of this year, the journeyman percussionist moved on again, playing further sessions and taking in stints with Peter Frampton’s band (just ahead of the singer’s triumphant
Frampton Comes Alive
period). He spent a year or so playing behind Bob Dylan during the successful 1978
Street Legal
tour. The late seventies and early eighties were taken up with tenures with Ry Cooder and former Eagle Don Henley. In short, Wallace was never out of work, though to list his studio and live credits would likely take up most of this chapter.

Wallace’s connection with King Crimson saw him make appearances with the 21
^st
Century Schizoid Band – a touring version of the group that also featured founder members Michael Giles and Ian McDonald – plus his own Crimson Jazz Trio in 2005, which reinterpreted Crimson’s music and prompted a well-received album. Live performances to support its release were, however, scuppered by Ian Wallace’s diagnosis with and subsequent treatment for oesophageal cancer: the release of a second record in 2009 was repackaged as a tribute following his death at the age of sixty.

Wednesday 28

Billy Thorpe

(Manchester, England, 29 March 1946)

Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs