The Olivia Tremor Control co-leader (with Will Cullen Hart) and Elephant 6 co-founder Bill Doss passed away July 31. His death—the cause of which is still unknown—is a huge loss to American psych rock. Since 1992, OTC have been exemplars of musicians who can both craft beautiful, baroque melodies and construct cryptic, engrossing musique-concrète compositions; most bands fail at being compelling with either approach. Doss also led stellar psych-rock outfit the Sunshine Fix while OTC were on hiatus throughout the '00s.

Friend and Chunklet founder Henry Owings has written a moving eulogy here. Read it and immerse yourself in OTC’s two classic albums, Music From the Unrealized Film Script: Dusk at Cubist Castle and Black Foliage: Animation Music Volume One. They provide a lifetime of deathless, daredevil thrills.

RIP, Bill Doss.

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*Apologies for the lateness of this post.

Super-slick bassist on several Motown Records hits Bob Babbitt passed away July 16 of brain cancer. He was 74.

A key member of the Funk Brothers, Babbitt laid down magnificently expressive and supple low end for some of the greatest songs of all time, including Stevie Wonder's "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours," Marvin Gaye's "Inner City Blues" and "Mercy, Mercy Me (The Ecology)," Freda Payne's "Band of Gold," the Temptations' "Ball of Confusion," Edwin Starr's "War," and the greatest Motown tune ever, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles' "Tears of a Clown." Further, Babbitt's solo on Dennis Coffey's "Scorpio" (not on Motown) is one of the most phenomenally funky performances on the instrument ever.

Read this Detroit News obit for more elaboration. RIP, Bob Babbitt.,

Turkish avant-garde electronic composer and producer Ilhan Mimaroglu passed away July 17. He was 86.

What I’ve heard of Mimaroglu’s music (admittedly, a small percentage of it) rivaled that of Iannis Xenakis for jagged, unpredictable dynamics, abrasive tonalities, and starkly menacing melodies. Besides his own challenging compositions, Mimaroglu worked on the soundtrack to Federico Fellini’s Satyricon and produced records for jazz musicians such as Charles Mingus and Freddie Hubbard, the latter of whose Sing Me a Song of Songmy (1971) was a harrowing, chaotic anti-war opus combining musique concrète, spoken word, and free jazz. Aside from Songmy, which turns up used vinyl bins with some regularity, the easiest place to access Mimaroglu's canon is the Agitation CD on Locust Records—or via YouTube, which has several quality clips.

RIP, Ilhan Mimaroglu.

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British prog-rock/free-jazz saxophonist Lol Coxhill passed away today after a serious illness. He was 79. Coxhill was a versatile, inventive player who worked with ex-Soft Machine member Kevin Ayers' group the Whole World, Canterbury prog band Delivery, jazz giant Anthony Braxton, guitar-improv legend Derek Bailey, punk rockers the Damned, Tubular Bells composer Mike Oldfield, and many others, while also recording several albums as a group leader. Coxhill is also well known for his decidedly quirky cover of the Beatles' "I Am the Walrus" from the Ear of the Beholder LP.

Here is longtime friend Robert Wyatt's eulogy and an excellent composition on which both played.

Coxhill's the bald, bearded gent soloing beautifully halfway through this Ayers song.

Blood Red Dancers will play their last show at the Capitol Hill Block Party July 20 on the Cha Cha Stage. To my ears, they always sounded like Nick Cave fronting the Doors, a boozy, cantankerous brawl of sound. Good luck with future endeavors, Blood Red Dancers.

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The legacy of my friend and former Stranger art director, Dale Yarger, will be remembered this weekend, Sunday, July 1 at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery.

The public is invited to celebrate the legacy of this remarkable artist at Fantagraphics Bookstore on Sunday, July 1 from 4:00 to 8:00 PM. “A Tribute to Dale Yarger” will include an exhibition of Dale’s memorable design work, along with testimonials and anecdotes from his many friends and colleagues in Seattle. Please join us. The exhibition will remain on view through July 10, 2012.

I wrote about Dale after he passed away earlier this year, it's something of an obituary, read it if you'd like. Actually, I'd rather you read it 'cause I'm not gonna write anything else as his passing has been tough for me.

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale Street in Georgetown.

Phenomenal guitarist Pete Cosey passed away this morning of unknown causes. He was 68.

The Chicago-based Cosey was best known (but criminally under-recognized) for his work with Miles Davis’ dynamite early-/mid-’70s ensembles and as a crucial session player for the Chess/Cadet Records stable (Rotary Connection, Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, etc.). Cosey’s fiery, intricate yet powerfully torqued style played a major role in elevating Davis LPs like Dark Magus, Agharta, Pangaea, and Get Up With It to classic status. He was the best possible successor to the departing John McLaughlin that Miles could've hoped to have landed. In his later years, Cosey played with Gary Bartz, John Stubblefield, and others in Children of Agharta, a group that kept the torch for Davis' mind-blowing electric years repertoire burning.

Chicago Reader posted a fine obit on its blog today. RIP, Pete Cosey.

With the somewhat shocking disbandment of Ween, perhaps this is an opportune time to listen to “Stallion 3000” by Seattle producer Gel-Sol (aka Andy Reichel). He recorded this tribute to Ween in 2005, which consists of nearly 70 of their songs compacted into one über-composition. This seems like as fine a send-off to Dean and Gene Ween's 28-year career as any. Listen to it here.

(If you missed it the first time, here's my very controversial best-of Ween mixtape tracklist.)

Ween frontman Aaron Freeman broke the news to Rolling Stone:

For most of his life he's been Gene Ween, the nimble-voiced frontman of one of rock's great genre-hoppers – but Aaron Freeman is finally ready to put his alter-ego to bed. "It's time to move on," Freeman told Rolling Stone from his home in New Jersey. "I'm retiring Gene Ween."

So does that mean the end for Ween, the band that Freeman formed with high school friend Mickey Melchiondo (a.k.a. Dean Ween) in New Hope, Pennsylvania, in the mid-Eighties?

"Pretty much, yeah," says Freeman. "It's been a long time, 25 years. It was a good run."

Read the whole story here.

Christopher Wallace, known to most of the world as Biggie Smalls or the Notorious B.I.G., would've been 40 years old today if it weren't for the March 1997 tragedy in Los Angeles that shook the hiphop world and furthered the end of its golden era. No need to get into that too deep, as I'm a firm supporter of cutting out the rampant celebration of death embedded in the cultural psyche for way too long. This is not the kind of message we want to pass on to younger generations. Instead, try to squeeze some time in today to appreciate the man's Biggie-sized (no Wendy's) contributions to hiphop, starting with the above famous footage of a 17-year-old Wallace at a curbside cypher in Bed Stuy, serving some poor sucka so badly that he hangs his head and walks away in defeat.

I'm always saying this kind of stuff, but seriously, imagine if the Internet had existed back then. Shit would've gone viral overnight. It didn't then, but since it does now, go 'head and listen to a few more of my favorite tracks that B.I.G. laced with that legendary vocal presence after the jump.

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Death’s taking a heavy toll on the music biz this week: Along with Donna Summer's death by cancer today, legendary bluegrass/country-rock banjo player Doug Dillard and go-go (a high-energy brand of funk peculiar to Washington DC) vocalist/guitarist Chuck Brown passed away this week. RIP to all three hugely talented artists, who were giants in their respective fields.

(After the cut, play both videos simultaneously for maximum headfuck.)

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The internet is reporting that Donna Summer has succumbed to cancer. She was 63. I knew this day sucked when I woke up.

They've been a band for 800 years*. They've had 200** guitarists and released 67 full-length albums***. And now, Akimbo have decided to officially call it quits. They've had a hell of a run.

Don't cry too hard, though. Sandrider, the fantastic and brutal rock band featuring Nat Damm and Jon Weisnewski, is alive and well.

*14 years.
**11 guitarists.
***Seven full-length albums.

Donald “Duck” Dunn, bassist for Booker T. & the M.G.’s, the crack studio group for Stax Records during its peak years and fantastic hit-makers in their own right, passed away May 13 in Tokyo while on tour with his longtime guitarist band mate Steve Cropper. He was 70.

Born in Memphis, Tennessee, Dunn was a member of the Royal Spades and the Mar-Keys before joining Booker T. & the M.G.’s in 1964. With the latter, he was a crucial component in one of the greatest soul bands ever, laying down fluid, tight, and funky bass lines that were always economical and complementary, never show-offy. Besides his contributions to M.G.’s songs like “Time Is Tight,” “Soul Limbo,” “Melting Pot,” and “Hip Hug-Her,” Dunn played with Stax luminaries like Otis Redding, the Staple Singers, and Sam and Dave. In addition, Dunn loaned his talents to the late Levon Helm, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and many other classic rockers. In 1978, Dunn and Cropper also served as backing players for John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd’s Blues Brothers project and played themselves in The Blues Brothers movie.

Rolling Stone and Chicago Tribune have posted obits that you should read. RIP, Donald Dunn.

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According to VH1, Don't Be a Faggot.

The review of the anthology questioned why the Beasties — who have changed offensive lyrics from the album's songs in concert — never addressed some of the homophobic lyrics on their debut album, whose working title, the bandmembers have said in interviews, was Don't Be a Faggot.

Now why bring this up? If the Beastie Boys' record label had not rejected that terrible and homophobic title, Don't Be a Faggot, the trio would have stepped right into oblivion. There would be no Paul's Boutique, Check Your Head, Hello Nasty, and the deification of MCA. Such is the state of all things: One step can lead you into history or into the dustbin of history. After being defeated by Russia's General Winter, Napoleon Bonaparte repeated to himself, as his army retreated: "There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous."