R.I.P. Sean Bonniewell and Jennifer Miro

Saints and Sinners

I was sadden to hear recently about the passing of two little known musicians who have held a place in my juke box soul.

Saint?

The first was Sean Bonniewell of the Music Machine (also known as the Bonniewell Music Machine) a 60s Garage Punk band that has been cited by some as one of thee bands that really inspired punk a decade later. Talk Talk, the bands big hit is a thundering pure rock tune that clocks in at a Ramones like 2:00 Minutes. It’s a powerful howl that is echoed in other Music Machine tunes like Double Yellow Line and The People in Me.  That said, Bonniewell was also an early chronicler of the damage of the drug culture (King Mixer), nuclear proliferation  (point of no Return) and the degradation of the Environment. After the Music Machine he became a DJ and found a career as well as becoming a Christian. Reports are that he was 71 when he passed.

Sinner?

Jennifer “Miro” Anderson was a fetish model, actress (having a small part in the sublime Dr. Caligari) but more importantly to me, she was a singer and keyboard player and songwriter in the great SF group The Nuns. The band was part of the first wave of punk groups in SF and opened for The Sex Pistols at their legendary final show at Winterland. Miro was a platinum Goddess who was one of the constant members of The Nuns, taking the band from punk to industrial. I like the original era of the band the best; their first LP is one of the great overlooked albums of the 1^st wave of punk. Their early 90s records had great moments that seemed to have fallen though the cracks and are well worth checking out.  Her voice could reach from the lower reaches of folk singer breathiness to the, wild, savage urgency of the better punk howlers.  I wonder what she could have done if she had gone more country than industrial in the 90s? Original Nun Alejandro Escovedo has paid tribute to The Nuns in song over the last couple of years with Sacramento and Polk and more obviously with Nuns Song… during which he sang, “You got so much to live for…. It’s not too late!” Now the time has passed, Miro was 54 and died of cancer in NYC.

Saints, Sinners, few of us are completely one or the other and often times the clothes of one is worn by the other. I don’t know where Bonniewell or Miro really fell on that scale, only that they are gone and left something for future generations to discover and enjoy.

It seems that the last couple of years have started off with news of punk heroes passing, Bonniewell and Miro now join with Lux Interior and Ron Asheton as gone but not forgotten.  

Robert B Parker RIP

I stopped reading Parker back in the 90s when I stopped reading series books. I had found Parker and really discovered crime novels because of the TV show Spencer for Hire. When I started to read crime novels again a couple of years back I intended to return to works of Parker and picked up a battered copy of the The Godwulf Manuscript, which I had intnded to read some time soon. With Parker's passing maybe it's time to move it up to the top of the TBR pile.

Where every you are, thank you.

Don't You Forget about Me.

Don't You Forget about Me.

It's been a weird month for notable deaths, and I wanted to take just a moment to comment on a couple of them.

First John Hughes. I grew up in the 80s, came of age as they say, and the films that Hughes made did make an impact on me, then and again later on when I started to unpack their messages. I had to have seen all of them, if not in theaters then on video (everyone remember the old days of video?). At the time they were sold as being 'Real' and 'Honest' about teens and their issues. I have to applaud Hughes for dealing with issues that weren't addressed in other teen films of the time-- class being the biggest one-- but at the same time I can't help but shake my head at the underling message of conformity that was in many of those films. To me the best of the teen films (and I am not counting Ferris Buller which is a fantasy even if it contains many truths) has to be Some kind of Wonderful, which is really Pretty in Pink with the correct ending. The rest of his films are marred with things like Annie Potts finding happiness when she sells out in Pretty in Pink and the underling message of The Breakfast Club seeming to be that as long as the nerds do all the work they will be allowed to live with out getting picked on. No matter my issues with those films they are iconic and did mean something to me and my generation. As a writer I always wanted to know where those stories would end, and it's too bad that Hughes never was able to come back and tell that tale.

Second Billy Lee Riley, almost the last of the Sun Rockabilly crew. He was there, he was part of it, and even if he did not get the fame and fortune of Elvis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash or the last man standing Jerry Lee Lewis he was part of that scene and that era. His band, sometimes known as the Little Green Men, were basically the house band at Sun and Riley was a first rate singer and ax man. I have always had a fondness for his classic Flyin' Saucer Rock'n'roll, which might just have been part of the blue print for Horror Punk and Psychobilly down the road. If nothing else he was pumping out the kind of energy that weaves it's way through the history of real Rock and Roll, from Rockabilly to Garage Rock to Proto Punk, Hard Rock, Punk Rock, Heavy Metal, Power Pop and on into the world of Grunge and Hi Energy Rock and Roll--- all of which have now seemingly come under the umbrella heading of -- Garage Punk!

Lastly Willie Deville. 70s NYC punk icon who brought that punk energy to R&B (the real stuff not the warmed over disco the mouse has been selling as of late) and roots rock. Like many of his peers from the CBGBs days he never really got the mainstream attention he deserved, but the underground and of course the Europeans remembered him. It's only been in the last couple of years that his music, mostly the Mink Deville 70s era stuff, has been part of my collection, and while I am still discovering his work his passing just reminds me that we are watching his generation of musicians start to leave us (those who lasted out the 80s) and wonder who will be the next to go.

thoughts, comments, remembrances?

Keith 'Doc' Herber

When I was in the 7th grade I had a small circle of friends who were the outsiders of the outsiders. We were all part of the MYA program, Ann Arbor's Alternative Middle School, and most of that group had a more creative bent and outlook. Several of us came from families who had parents with artistic histories. My Dad had a BFA and my mother was one of those writing group/work shop types. My buddy Erik, his Dad-- Keith -- played bass, worked as a cab driver and wrote materials for the Role Playing Game Call of Cthulhu. It was this connection that first drew me to the work of H.P. Lovecraft, and the world of pulp fiction. I like to joke, this helped ruin my life, the truth is that it enriched my life.

I had an e-mail from Erik's mother over the weekend, she informed me that Keith Herber has passed away a couple of months back. He was 60 and his passing was sudden. I recall Keith as being my friends Dad, but also a guy who treated his son's friends like people and not kids who were underfoot. I recall him calling me one day during the summer in the late 80s, he was playing the computer game Wasteland and was stuck. He was looking for help on what the next step in the game was and with the clues he had found. I was more than happy to help him out, as I had won the game a couple of times at that point. I recall also play testing a Call of Cthulhu adventure for Gen Con with his family and seeing him around town into my high school years. As High School went on Erik and I drifted apart, he was a theater guy and I wasn't.

Keith and his wife moved out west in the late 80s, but I saw him again when he was in town for our High School Graduation. I had an e-mail or two with him a couple of years back and sent him some of the Reanimator Records CDs. It is strange the only other writer I had contact with when I was growing up was Robert Asprin(who was also the father of a school mate) and he passed away a year ago, but I guess I was just lucky that there were adults around who were creative and able to be an example of the creative life.

R.I.P. Keith

You Better Ask my Momma how to make a Monster!

RIP Lux Interior

The king is dead.... it's spinning in my head. Lux has left the building.

More to come when I can gather my thoughts.

Images from http://punkturns30.blogspot.com/ by the amazing Anna Log