moodmat

The editorial desks of the southern bureau of Moodmat are closing for 2009. Our office party is happening this afternoon. In lieu of a top list for the year or decade, I’d instead like to take a minute to acknowledge the following people not named Michael Jackson whose passing made the music world significantly less awesome in 2009. May their contributions never become mere footnotes in the history of pop music.

(in no particular order)

Lux Interior
The lead singer of one of the best garage punk bands of all time, The Cramps. If you ever had an opportunity to see the Cramps live you’d know this isn’t just a standard hyperbole tag. By far one of the most energetic showmen I’ve ever seen on stage. Even in his late fifties he could still kick the collective asses of people two to three decades younger than him who dared to open for his band.

Les Paul
The man who not only redefined the electric guitar, but numerous popular recording techniques tape delay, multi-track recording and phasing. His guitar technique also set the standard for jazz guitar.

Koko Taylor
The voice of giants in a blues era dominated by some of the greatest blues musicians of all time. Just take a listen to her impassioned performance on “Wang Dang Doodle” and you’ll see why she earned her place amongst giants.

John Hughes
By no means a musician, Hughes did something better than anyone else in the 80s: he made music a star unto itself in all of his most important films. It’s hard not to hum Simple Minds “Don’t You Forget About Me” and not think of John Bender, or hear the Beatles “Twist And Shout” and not think of Ferris Bueller. He introduced bold and daring bands to a wider audience, and while he got credit for his masterful screenplays and films he never got enough due credit for his music curatorial skills.

Ellie Greenwich
One of the two prominent female songwriters in the era of the Brill Building and definitely one of the most important songwriters of the 60s, she wrote some of the most popular songs of the era including “Be My Baby” and “Leader Of The Pack”. My personal favorite is Tina Turner’s version of “River Deep Mountain High”.

Jerry Fuchs
The drummer for The Juan Maclean, Turing Machine and countless others was as good a drummer as this generation gets. The feel of a jazz drummer combined with the fury and thunder of a Bonham/Moon and the technicality of a prog rock drummer made him a multi faceted threat and weapon to any band choosing to retain his services. There wasn’t one band that wasn’t made exponentially better just by having him on the drum stool.

Rashied Ali
During his early career, Ali kept company with some of the giants of jazz: Coltranes John and Alice, Paul Bley, Pharoah Sanders and innumerable free jazz musicians during the 60s and 70s. However, some of his best work came later in life working with his own quintet and collaborations with Henry Grimes and Marilyn Crispell.

Maryanne Amacher
The queen bee in a hive of drones. Amacher’s sound installations rarely were documented in a recorded format, but anyone who had the privilege to experience one knows that they were in the presence of something extraordinary. Her Sound Characters album on Tzadik is one of my all time favorite avant-garde albums. She never really received due recognition while living. Here’s hoping she’ll receive the acclaim she so richly deserves posthumously.

Ron Asheton
The guitarist for The Stooges set the tone and temper for the band just as much as their epileptic nudist lead singer James Newell Osterberg, Jr., as well as setting the tone and influence for some of alt-rocks greatest guitar heroes. It’s hard to imagine any of the Stooges records without his presence.

Charlie Cooper
I saved this one for last. It’s the hardest for me to write. Like so many electronic music fans, I knew Charlie Cooper on a personal level. I became a fan of Charlie Cooper the person before I became a fan of Telefon Tel Aviv. In fact, I hated the band the first time I saw them right before their first album dropped. But Charlie and Josh were just so kind and hysterical, it was inevitable I would become a fan of their music. And sure enough, I most certainly did. Fahrenheit Fair Enough was an album that got me through some of the darkest times of my life. The demos to Map Of What Is Effortless became the soundtrack to my recovery. I owe Charlie and Josh more than my thanks for this. It seems awful I’ll never be able to repay the debt of what was so generously given to me by Charlie. And like so many of you, I was stunned into deep silence upon the news of Charlie’s passing. In an industry so full of self-absorption and vanity, he was selflessness, warmth and kindness. He was the exception and not the rule. It’s been almost a year now and the clenching of my stomach and lump in my throat still hasn’t gone away when talking about him. I miss him dearly.