Rolling Obituary Thread 2025

Wayne Osmond, 73, of the Osmonds

also

Russ North, 59, former singer of Clover Hoof, and runner-up to replace Bruce Dickinson in Iron Maiden.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKUjuKjeCsk

Jocelyn Wildenstein has sadly used up the last of the 9 lives

Pippa Garner, whose work i only encountered for the first time at the most recent hammer museum biennial

https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/pippa-garner-dead-1234729124/

David Lodge

https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2025/01/david-lodge-obituary

Someone who felt everywhere when I was an Eng Lit teenager, & I read and enjoyed the campus trilogy, but then never anything else.

Britt Allcroft, creator of Thomas the Tank Engine.

RIP, David Lodge. Read most of what he wrote through the campus trilogy and then a few things after that. Seem him give a reading from Paradise News at Books, Inc. on the Upper East Side when it came out.

I gave up on him after his terrible book ‘Thinks…’. He was good when he was at his peak, but he couldn’t seem to shake off his rather tiresome obsessions in his later work.

Yeah, he became a bit of an old bore, sorry to say.

Adam Roberts said it better in his review of his H.G. Wells book.

Mick Hobbs of the Work, Officer! And other This Heat type adjacent arty stuff.

Soulman Brenton Wood

https://variety.com/2025/music/news/brenton-wood-dead-the-oogum-boogum-song-soul-singer-1236265160/

"CheckOutTheBootsEh CheckOutTheBootsEh CheckOutTheBootsEh"

Heh, Adam Roberts wrote something nice about David Lodge in his new(ish) substack and now says his H.G. Wells book is “better than its reputation.”

Jeff Baena, 47, filmmaker and Aubrey Plaza’s husband

Absolutely tragic. Reports suggest it was suicide

Tomiko Itooka, a Japanese woman who was the world's oldest person according to Guinness World Records, has died, an Ashiya city official said Saturday. She was 116.

https://abc7news.com/post/is-oldest-person-alive-tomiko-itooka-japanese-woman-was-worlds-116-has-died/15751689/

I wish I could have the extra years now, not when I'm 112

The Jeff Baena thing is mind wrecking

The Vivienne, winner of Rupaul's Drag Race UK Season One, 32.

this is just awful

Experimental playwright and one of the real heroes of the Downtown scene, Richard Foreman.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/04/theater/richard-foreman-dead.html

Per a post from Steven Krakow just now on FB, ESP-Disk veteran/painter Ed Askew, who had a good second run these past twenty five years with a full series of albums following the debut back in 1968.

xp wow i was just talking about Richard Foreman with someone the other day. learned about his work from my favorite college professor who had us read pages from some of his scripts. RF more or less retired from theater while i was living in nyc; sad i never got to see any of his productions, they seemed like quite the trip.

Think I only ever got over to see one production of his, which I enjoyed, but always found him interesting and intriguing. RIP.

Per a post from Steven Krakow just now on FB, ESP-Disk veteran/painter Ed Askew, who had a good second run these past twenty five years with a full series of albums following the debut back in 1968.

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, January 5, 2025 4:00 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I shared a bill with him at a Greenpoint loft party about ten years ago now— Ka Baird introduced him. Tons of people came out despite what was essentially a hurricane going on outside. He was a lovely person, chatted with him for a while. RIP.

"Goin' Down" Dude Don Nix

https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/entertainment/music/2025/01/01/don-nix-obituary-stax-artist-songwriter-producer/77388086007/

Alfa Anderson, the lead singer of Chic from 1978-1983, aged 78

https://ra.co/news/81880

Alfa Anderson passed in 2024 and already posted on the old thread.

oops i missed that!

Mike Rinder, 69, ex-Scientologist and Leah Remini’s co-host on several shows.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, French fascist, 96

good

Good riddance.

God that fucker was still hanging around, huh

Gunvor Nelson, one of the greatest experimental filmmakers. would encourage everyone to seek out red shift

Reuters describing him as an unabashed nationalist (not like those many meek, humble ones) and a 'pugnacious mix of populism, eloquence and charisma'.

🤮🤮🤮

Fascist ghouls tend to live forever unfortunately, or what seems like it. Unless they're shot and hung upside down from a lamppost first of course.

"oh I'm angin from a lamppost at the corner of the street .."

© Alexei Sayle

Peter Yarrow, 86

Wow!

Aww, the Italian 'Robinson Crusoe' Mauro Morandi has died... they killed him when they forced him off his island

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/07/hermit-guardian-budelli-island-off-sardinia-dies

Beej Chaney from Minneapolis greats the Suburbs:

https://www.startribune.com/beej-chaney-suburbs-death-guitarist/601203171

I just bumped the Suburbs thread to post this. I’m really sad.

RIP Pete Yarrow bc Peter Paul & Mary were a childhood cornerstone … but it’s hard to square that with the fact that Carter pardoned him for his ~admitted~ sexual assault of a 14yo girl and not scream into the void

Just read this now. So weird--I was in a theatre yesterday rewatching A Complete Unknown (Yarrow's in there two or three times, including the guy who reintroduces Dylan for his crowd-calming acoustic number at Newport '65). Fan from childhood too; didn't know about the assault at all.

apparently there may have been other incidents

https://web.archive.org/web/20210517122113/https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/05/17/peter-yarrow-carter-pardon-assault/

wow just read some of that, he was puff the magic scumbag

Sorry for your loss, man

I'm used to everyone dying, my younger brother though - it's really hit him hard. He was probably the most influential person in his life and I doubt he's ever missed one daily meeting or phone call with him in 30 years.

Also going back to Howard Riley, it's impressive how much of a contribution he made to UK avant garde jazz, he really should be more well known for such a great player he was.

RIP Lionel Soukaz, (in)famous experimental gay film director. More here:
https://denniscooperblog.com/lionel-soukaz-day-2/

Tom Robbins, age 92

Rutherford Chang, the artist who opened a store that stocked nothing but copies of the Beatles White Album. Only 45.

ah man, rip Tom Robbins - loved his books in my younger years. Another Roadside Attraction & Jitterbug Perfume were faves.

My parents owned a couple of his — I think I read Still Life With Woodpecker and possibly one other. They were probably my dad's, since he owned a bunch of Richard Brautigan books, too.

feels like every bookcase had at least one Robbins paperback in the 70s/80s... right next to Jonathan Livingston Seagull

He seemed like one of those writers you outgrow. Like if I met a 40+ person who had all of Robbins' books on their shelves I'd assume they hadn't read much else in the past few decades.

totally
this sounds snarky but when someone tells me their favorite book is something like A Confederacy of Dunces or Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, I just assume that's maybe the only novel they've ever finished and it was a long, long time ago

otm

urban planner and noted hater of parking donald shoup, 86

Tom Robbins was the first author I thought of when the "novelists no one reads anymore" thread was created.

Legendary grime producer Rodney Price aka Terror Danjah

Beloved, highly underrated Italian pianist Maria Tipo, at 93. Leaving behind great recordings of Bach, Scarlatti, Beethoven, Schumann, etc on EMI, Vox and several Italian labels.

Irv Gotti, 54

sorry totally missed that's from a week ago

He's still dead tbf

still r.i.p.

RIP visual artist and actress Niké Arrighi. A slight but impressive career - roles in The Devil Rides Out, Countess Dracula, an episode of The Prisoner, Truffaut's Day for Night, The Devils.

https://exclusivefilms.wordpress.com/2025/02/12/nike-arrighi-1947-2025/

Wow, RIP Tanith.

Japanese musician Magical Power Mako

Sad to hear, only 69 too. His "Hapmoniym 1972-1975" 5-disc set of outtakes is quite the trip.

Aw, RIP. Fond memories of discovering his first two albums in the early days of mp3 blogs

Tommy Hunt, 91: originally in The Flamingos, later big on the UK northern soul scene.

^^Recorded the original version of "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself"

Jimi Mbaye, 67, long-time guitarist in Youssou N'Dour's Super Étoile Band.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iwtJwyMzGc

A 71-year-old woman has died after her oxygen supply was cut off when the United States announced a freeze on aid funding. Pe Kha Lau, a refugee from Myanmar living in a displacement camp in neighbouring Thailand, died four days after she was discharged from a USAID-funded healthcare facility operated by the International Rescue Committee (IRC).

She is thought to be one of the first people to have died as a direct result of Washington’s decision to freeze all funding for aid projects for 90 days.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/us-aid-freeze-claims-first-victims-as-oxygen-supplies-cut

that can't be true, Rubio guaranteed that any lifesaving spending would continue, I heard him say it

Missed this from a few weeks ago: Bob Kuban of "The Cheater" fame.

https://deadline.com/2025/01/bob-kuban-dead-the-cheater-hit-single-1236262675/

#onethread

Beloved, highly underrated Italian pianist Maria Tipo, at 93.

I never heard of her until the Scarlatti thread here a few months ago set me off on a Spotify safari to explore interpreters new to me. He recordings from as far back as nearly 70 years quickly became my favorite piano versions of all. Underrated is an understatement.

Biff Wiff, actor (perhaps best known from I Think You Should Leave)

Noooo. RIP Shirt Brother

He’ll always be Santa the action movie star to me

Actress Geneviève Page, 97

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/genevieve-page-dead-belle-de-jour-el-cid-private-life-sherlock-holmes-1236137297/

RIP. She is great in "Belle de Jour".

RIP Julian Holloway, until now one of the last surviving actors to have appeared in more than one Carry On film, among many other UK film and TV credits (A Hard Day’s Night, The Great Rock n Roll Swindle to name just two). He was the son of Stanley Holloway and the father of Sophie Dahl.

Jamie Muir, percussionist for the best lineup of King Crimson, the quintet that made Larks' Tongues in Aspic.

RIP. This one is all-time for me:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5a/Bailey_Muir_Dart_Drug.jpg

Bad times for drummers, Rick Buckler of the Jam has also died.

https://www.express.co.uk/celebrity-news/2016287/the-jam-rick-buckler-dead-death

oh no, what a great drummer.. their output has really held up over the years

https://www.lemonde.fr/disparitions/article/2025/02/19/souleymane-cisse-un-des-chefs-de-file-du-cinema-africain-est-mort_6554682_3382.html

Per Severin Films social media, Rossella Drudi, screenwriter of dozens of bizarro Italian knock-off genre movies in the 70s and 80s, mainly directed by Bruno Mattei and her husband, Claudio Fragasso. Probably most famous for Troll 2, but Strike Commando, Robowar, and Shocking Dark are all also musts.

Troll 2, wow!

Kim Sae-ron, probably best known over here for her really outstanding performance in the film The Man From Nowhere, at age 24

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kim-sae-ron-death-discussion-toxic-online-comments-south-korea/

filmmaker Souleymane Cissé

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/20/obituaries/souleymane-cisse-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.yU4.pLvj.JrJk5qbV-Zbh&smid=url-share

Former US Senator David Boren (D-OK)

Form his 1978 campaign:

Anthony Points, who ran under an assumed name and faced charges for passing bogus checks, accused Boren of being gay. Following his victory, Boren swore an oath on a family Bible, that "I know what homosexuals and bisexuals are. I further swear that I am not a homosexual or bisexual. And I further swear that I have never been a homosexual or bisexual. And I further swear that I have never engaged in any homosexual or bisexual activities nor do I approve of or condone them."

Form = From

i misread the final sentence as 'nor do i approve of or condom them'

i misread the final sentence as 'nor do i approve of or condom them'