Jared Sletager, who played in local bands Pregnant and Elphaba, and also helped Adam Paysse co-found Rome Plow Records, passed away Sunday night. He was 29. In October the vehicle he was driving was struck by a drunk driver, putting him in a coma for a number of weeks. "He fought incredibly hard to live," says his friend and bandmate Matt Doctor, "but after many complications his body began to shut down and the decision was made to let him go. He was surrounded by many friends and family at his passing."

Elphaba was a great band, and Jared has been a proud supporter of the local all-ages music scene for many years. It was partly because of them that local label Rome Plow ever existed (and went on to release albums by the Assailant, Helms Alee, Blues and more). In an Underage column in 2006, Paysse said: "I had no intention of starting a label, but after hearing the songs Elphaba had recorded, I just couldn't stand by and let a record that brilliant go unreleased and unappreciated. So I offered to put it out."

Rome Plow has since stopped releasing records, but Paysse is bringing back the label to release a limited vinyl run of Elphaba's last record, a record that the band never got to release themselves. "Jared was particularly proud of the record and sad it was never released," says Matt.

Friends are also organizing benefit shows to help his family cover the costs of the funeral or to donate money to one of Jared's favorite charities. The first one is December 5th at the Black Lodge with Navigator vs. Navigator, Stres, and Happy Birthday Secret Weapon. The others have yet to be confirmed, but I'll definitely post details once they're worked out.

This is an incredibly sad story, and sincere condolences go out to his friends, family, and bandmates.

RIP, Jared.

Jerry "Gerhardt" Fuchs, the drummer who provided propulsive, motorik and disco beats for the Juan Maclean, !!!, Turing Machine, Maserati, and others died in the early morning hours today after falling down an elevator shaft at a party in Brooklyn.

Fuchs put on an amazing percussion display during the Juan Maclean's last date at Nectar in June. His contributions to the Juan Maclean were invaluable, and the albums he recorded with Turing Machine—especially Zwei—are crucial, too. He will be dearly missed.

Chunklet magazine's Henry Owings has written a powerful remembrance here.

Drummer Chuck Biscuits—who has played with Black Flag, Danzig, the Circle Jerks, and Social Distortion—passed away Saturday afternoon from throat cancer. He was 44 years old.

The blog JG2 has a great write up about all of his musical accomplishments here.

UPDATE: According to the latest update on the JG2 blog, Chuck Biscuits is not dead. His wife has contacted the author of the post, saying Chuck is alive. Apparently the writer got bad information from a source claiming to be someone they weren't. Strange.

Flowered Up's Liam Maher just died.

Maher was the lead singer of London's early '90s answer to the acid-house baggy sound of Manchester's Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses, and rarely got much credit from the press despite a mad live reputation and being behind one of the era's most ambitious never-ending anthems.

"Weekender," nearly thirteen minutes long and released on Heavenly Records (Beth Orton, Saint Etienne, Manic Street Preachers) is what you get when the scene's earth-breaking hedonism flouts the abyss with an ever-changing epic of quintessential attitude, monstrous drugs, echoed guitars, a sort of daft earnestness, and electric currents of positivity, essentially becoming both an emblem and a tribute to the sound of the times.

Heavenly writes:

It ran through styles faster than kids escaping from a corner shop break in, sprinting from guitar-heavy mooching shuffle to stoned ambient middle to final insanity race to the end, all the while Liam railing against weekend clubbers, promoting a fatalistic 24-7 party lifestyle.

The song spawned a short film by seminal music-video director Wiz.

As well as The Twang's entire career.

Maybe now they'll be missed.

A big chunk of hiphop history died this morning of a heart attack:

One of Hip Hop's earliest radio allies, pioneering deejay John "Mr. Magic" Rivas died, which has been confirmed by numerous sources in and around the Rap industry. In addition to being one of the culture's gatekeepers through his position at radio station at 105.9 WHBI FM, Mr. Magic is considered to be a co-founder of The Juice Crew, the legendary 1980s outfit of Marley Marl, MC Shan Big Daddy Kane, Kool G Rap, Roxanne Shante, Fly Ty Williams, Biz Markle, Craig G, TJ Swan, Masta Ace and Tragedy Khadafi.

From 1983 to eternity, The Juice Crew:

One of the greatest turntablists ever, Roc Raida, passed away Sept. 19 from complications arising from an accident, according to Wikipedia, although allhiphop.com reports that the actual cause of death remains unclear.

I had the good fortune to witness Raida, who was Busta Rhymes' tour DJ and winner of the 1995 DMC World DJ Championship, perform about a half dozen times with the X-Ecutioners. They never failed to dazzle with their precise, intricate, witty, and funky routines. The amount of rehearsal time, arranging skills, and hand-eye coordination required to execute their Technics & wax compositions boggles the mind. To hell with anyone who thinks turntablists aren't musicians.

RIP, Roc Raida.

I know it's silly, Peter, Paul & Mary can be mocked as much for their children's music ("Puff The Magic Dragon") as for their pop, white-bread versions of Dylan classics ("Don't Think Twice, It's Alright", "Blowin' In The Wind"). For me, though, Peter, Paul & Mary meant much more.

I was a child of baby boomers; culturally more than literally. My father was born at the end of the great depression, and my mother was a war baby. That's World War II. Even though they were born just before the massive boom of childbirth at the end of the war, most of their friends and co-workers through their lives and careers were of the generation that brought folk music to the world stage.

When growing up I used to go into our basement where my mother kept all her old records, reel-to-reel tapes and her hi-fi stereo and tape deck. I would hook them up myself (her original hi-fi was one of the traveling record players who's speakers folded in on top of the player so it could be carried to a party like a dinosaur version of the boom-box, which itself is extinct now....) stretching the speakers way out to each side of the room so i could experiment with the balance nob and listen to how her old "In Living Stereo" records were divided up between the left and right speakers.

My mother would have killed me had she known I was doing this. For her, this was akin to the rifling through parent’s drawers that all kids do when they come home from school and their parents aren't home. She didn't like for her old music to be messed with. Every album and every tape were numbered and filed using something like the Dewey system; each with it's correct place in the collection. Alphabetized and categorized. (Did I tell you she started her career as a librarian, then moved on to be a clerk for the government?)

I guess now you would say my mother had passé taste. Her music collection comes to a complete halt in the mid '60's just before my brother was born. As The Beatles started storm America, take over the airwaves and record stores, putting the folk-singers out of business, my mother stopped buying records. So her collection at times seemed frozen in amber. But her records and hi-fi system were an amazing thing to me, and through them I learned to love old folk music. I use to think it was so cool how Joan Baez and Odetta and Peter Paul & Mary could turn performances at concerts and festivals into rapturous sing-a-longs. Turning even the most stale environments into backyard "hootenanys".

When I was finally old enough that my parents thought me responsible enough to have my own little tape player, they joined the Columbia Music Club and bought a few tapes for the family to listen to on my new little stereo. The first was Peter Paul & Mary’s greatest hits collection, “10”.

Author, poet, and musician Jim Carroll died of a heart attack in his Manhattan apartment on Friday, September 11th. He was 60 years old.

Also: he is also the man doing the spoken word part in Rancid's "Junkie Man":

RIP, Jim Carroll.

Fat handed rock lummoxes Oasis have finally been put out of our misery after splitting up yesterday (Friday).

The band, responsible for one good album, one alright album and a lot of cunting misery on top of that have split up five times before due to constant squabbling between the band's chief song writer Noel and genetically 'curious' singer, Liam.

The statement was made on the band's official website. Noel said: "It's with some sadness and great relief to tell you that I quit Oasis tonight.

Best of all is the paragraph that spreads a rumor:

Earlier it was announced the band had cancelled their second gig in the space of a week because of "an altercation within the band". Rumours at the time of publication that the brothers had fallen out after a heated debate about Jacques Derrida and the death of the author with Noel subscribing to a hard line Plato/logocentric position with Liam unable to convince him of the need to consider "fookin' Roland Barthes" remain unconfirmed.

TMZ is reporting that DJ AM was found dead in his New York apartment this evening.

(If I were one to entertain conspiracy theories, I'd point out that DJ AM, who, as we all know, survived a plane crash in 2008, was found dead on the same day The Final Destination opens in theaters, which is the fourth movie in a series of movies about people who survive a tragic accidents only to get stalked by and ultimately done in by death itself.)

Les Paul. Dead at 94.

Shannon Selberg of Cows/Heroine Sheiks non-fame reveals why the latter group is calling it a career on his MySpace blog. It's an enlightening, sobering read for any musician in a band struggling to stay afloat—or for anyone in any band, really.

A key passage:

To me, living as a person day to day, it seems that people like the idea that there is still a Cows, or a Heroine Sheiks, or a Shannon Selberg (whatever that is) out there, somewhere, like a grizzly, still living in the wild. I appreciate that too, but again, it does me no good. The wild is gone. And if a grizzly survives purely by eating from garbage dumps or only in a few zoos, is it still a grizzly? I don’t think so. I know, because I tried—you have no idea...

(Cows' cover of John Barry's "Midnight Cowboy" theme is appropriate exit music for Selberg, as it's the most poignant song ever.)

It's only 67 degrees in Seattle right now. Perfect for drinking hot coffee and listening Steven Paul "Elliott" Smith. He would have turned 40 years old today...

photo by Autumn De Wilde

Because we know that no one just drops dead like that, we want to know why Baatin of Slum Village dropped dead this Saturday.

Light is beginning to fall on the dark answer:

While the cause of [his] death has not been released due to pending toxicology reports, a source close to Baatin told AllHipHop.com the rapper may have died from a crack addiction or from complications related to crack cocaine use.