Tag Archives: RIP

RIP Kenny Rogers (1938 – 2020)

Kenny Rogers was an American singer mainly known for his work in country music.

Since I have but a flimsy a connection with that genre, my lemma on Mr. Rogers is satisfyingly brief.

However, early in his career, Kenny put out two quirky and interesting records.

“Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)” (1967)

The first is “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)“, a song that reflects the LSD experience and captures the short-lived psychedelic era of the late 1960s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFZsZ7O1Z8o
“Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town”

Then there is “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town“, a song about the male angst of a paralyzed Vietnam war veteran and his wife who goes to town to find a lover.

The “Ruby” song concludes with the darkly ominous words “If I could move I’d get my gun and put her in the ground.” Bit of nasty femicide threat there for ya.

RIP Genesis P-Orridge (1950 – 2020)

Genesis P-Orridge was and English musician and founding member of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV.

I first learned of P-Orridge in the late 1980s during the acid house period. I remember some of their Psychic TV material from the radio shows by Luc Janssen. However, I can’t seem to find the tracks that I heard at the time.

“United/Zyklon B Zombie”

Where to begin? There is so much. Let’s start with the exceptional single “United/Zyklon B Zombie” (1978).

And let us add the album 20 Jazz Funk Greats (1979) also by Throbbing Gristle.

There was a time when I actually thought that these were jazz-funk tracks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHPe-IzR2D0&list=PLDzS1Jgeqb3PIuSEAFkDUqa1QCAEEcFjf
20 Jazz Funk Greats (1979)

New listener, do not fear, it’s very experimental but actually not that hard on the irritation scale.

RIP Vittorio Gregotti (1927 – 2020)

And the first covid-19 victims start to come in.

Kitsch: The World of Bad Taste (1968)

Vittorio Gregotti was an Italian architect. He contributed the essay “Kitsch and Architecture” to Kitsch: The World of Bad Taste (1968) by Gillo Dorfles.

While the essay references Googie architecture and the kitsch of the roadside attraction, it fails to cite God’s Own Junkyard (1964).

It also fails to foreshadow the positive view of kitsch in Learning from Las Vegas (1972).

RIP Mal Sharpe (1936 – 2020)

“Maniacs In Living Hell”, from The Insane (But Hilarious) Minds Of Coyle & Sharpe (1964).

Mal Sharpe was an American humorist.

His most notable work was done as part of the duo Coyle and Sharpe.  They were active as street interviewers in the early 1960s and were simply hilarious.

The filmed sequence of “The Warbler” is hilarious. Sadly, it appears to be offline at the moment.

I give you “Maniacs In Living Hell”, collected on the album The Insane (But Hilarious) Minds Of Coyle & Sharpe (1964).

RIP Max von Sydow (1929 – 2020)

Max von Sydow was a Swedish-born actor famous for playing chess with death in the film The Seventh Seal (1957).

In my universe, he has a minor role in Death Watch (1980) a film which caught my attention at a young age. It tells the story of a woman with an incurable disease who will be filmed 24/7 until her death.

Death Watch (1980)


Its theme is still my theme: technology, reality television and its impact on society.

Von Sydow has but a minor part in this film.

Speaking of reality television. The most underrated film with reality television as a trope is Paul Bartel’s The Secret Cinema (1968).

RIP McCoy Tyner (1938 – 2020)

McCoy Tyner was an American jazz pianist.

What links McCoy Tyner to the Jahsonic 1000?

Let me tell you.

Among Tyner’s most critically acclaimed albums is Trident (1975).

On that Trident album there is a musical composition called “Impressions” which features a bassline by Ron Carter which was sampled throughout the “The Choice Is Yours (Revisited)” (1991) by Black Sheep. The sample is well-known in hip hop midst because in fact it is the spine of that song. It is also in the Jahsonic 1000.

 Impressions  by John Coltrane interpreted by McCoy Tyner. In this song, the Black Sheep sample in at 3:03.

The song “Impressions” is an interpretation of Coltrane’s composition Impressions (1962).

“The Choice Is Yours (Revisited)” (1991) by Black Sheep. The bassline if featured throughout.

RIP David Roback (1958 – 2020)

“Fade into You” (1994)

David Roback was an American guitarist, best-known for co-writing “Fade into You” (1994). That was a song by Mazzy Star and it featured the vocals of Hope Sandoval.

Listening to this, I can’t help but think that Lana Del Rey has a very similar sound and voice. Not surprisingly, both Mazzy Star and Lana Del Rey are considered dream pop.

RIP José Mojica ‘Coffin Joe’ Marins (1936 – 2020)

José Mojica Marins was a Brazilian film director, best-known for his persona “Coffin Joe“.

 At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul (1964)

I just finished watching At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul (1964) and it’s actually quite good. I especially like the atheist bits, his materialist world view, his Nietzschean take on things.

For example, Coffin Joe eats meat on Holy Friday, just to taunt his catholic fellow townspeople.

And consider the opening oration of Coffin Joe:

“What is life?
It is the beggining of death.
What is death?
It is the end of life!
What is the existence?
It is the continuity of blood.
What is blood?
It is the reason of the existence!”

All this blasphemous discourse makes you wonder how this went down in Brasil. After all, it was 1964, another four years for 1968 to happen … and … did that even ‘happen’ in Brasil, the sexual revolution?

See atheism in Brazil, the sexual revolution in Brazil.

RIP Flavio Bucci (1947 – 2020)

Flavio Bucci was an Italian actor known in my canon for his tiny part in the metafilm Closed Circuit (1978).

I wrote about that film here.

In that film Flavio Bucci sports thick glasses and plays the part of a nerdy sociologist who takes notes of the audience’s reactions during the screening of the film.

Afterwards he is interrogated by the police. Has he seen anything which can solve the murder of a man in the audience by a gun man IN the film?

You can see Mr. Bucci from 27:20 onwards.

Mr. Bucci also played in the sex comedy Gegè Bellavita (1978) which can be found in full on YouTube.