Moonage Webdream

Clive Cookson looked into a stereotype to see if the “dead rockers” generalization had some validity to it.  Math showed him what everyone already knew, rockers generally tend to die young.  Especially young ones.  Especially those that had just made it.  The story in Financial Times then lists some famous dead rockers:

• Buddy Holly was killed in an air crash in 1959, aged 22
• Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, drowned in 1969, aged 27
• Jimi Hendrix died of a barbiturates overdose in 1970, aged 28
• Jim Morrison of the Doors overdosed on heroin in 1971, aged 28
• Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols overdosed on heroin in 1979, aged 22
• John Lennon of the Beatles, murdered in 1980, aged 40
• Ian Curtis of Joy Division committed suicide in 1980, aged 23
• Kurt Cobain of Nirvana committed suicide in 1994, aged 27
• Tupac Shakur was killed in a drive-by shooting in 1996, aged 25
• Aaliyah died in a plane crash while filming a video in 2002, aged 22

Oddly, he omitted some others I would have had way up on the list:

• Janis Joplin, drug overdose
• Bon Scott, alcohol overdose
• Keith Moon, heart attack
• Freddie Mercury, AIDS
• Klaus Nomi, AIDS
• Mick Ronson, cancer
• Randy Rhoads, airplane wreck
• Joey Ramone
• Johnny Ramone
• Dee Dee Ramone
• Shannon Noone, drug overdose

On and on and on it goes.  Name a band that’s been there for a while, and most likely they’ll have at least one deceased former member.  Almost as if on cue, we get this headline this morning:

New Bohemians band member shot dead

Jeffrey Carter Albrecht, a keyboard player for the band Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, was shot to death early Monday while trying to kick in the door of his girlfriend’s neighbor, police said.

The neighbor, who was not immediately identified, was asleep in bed when he woke up around 4 a.m. to his wife screaming that someone was breaking into the house, according to a police report. The neighbor yelled through the door for Albrecht to leave and then fired his handgun through the door.

News reports cited police saying Albrecht beat up his girlfriend and then tried to kick down the neighbor’s door in a drunken rage……..

Add him to the dead rockers’ club.  You’d think after a point most of them would have some sense to know, just looking at their dead idols, that living the rock lifestyle just means you’re gonna party about twenty years less than those that don’t.

How many kids are going to look at today’s headlines and think this will never happen to them either?

I long ago got tired of being disappointed with my idols killing themselves stupidly.  Bon Scott drowning in vomit wasn’t a symbol of coolness to me, it meant my favorite song-writer would be writing no more songs.  ACDC changed because Bon couldn’t hold his alcohol.  It was never the same.  For that, I still blame Bon.  It’s fine and dandy to party and have a good time, but so many rockers do it completely to excess and destroy themselves in the process.  Kids only see the fun side of it, obviously.  That’s what these rock stars promote.  “Be like me”, and then, they’re dead.  Kids see their idols abusing drugs and saying it’s cool.  Then, for reasons I don’t quite grasp, just sort of ignore the fact they’re dead and died of that abuse.  As a society we need to start emphasizing the fact that they’re dead instead of glorifying what they did to become dead. 

I may not have ever been a rock star.  Never really wanted to.  However, I have played more music than Jim Morrison ever dreamed of.  I have seen and experienced the evolution of digital music all the waty from the original Moogs to today’s PC’s.  I have been fascinated by this evolution and the new sounds it creates.  Jim Morrison didn’t get to experience any of it.  Janis Joplin didn’t.  Jeff Albrecht wont’ experience it any more.  And, I’m going to bet I have partied more than Morrison, Joplin, or any of the dead rockers as well.  I just know there’s a proper time and place for it.  It’s never consumed my life.  And, I know there are temptations out there that I would problably like too much and therefore have avoided them like the plague.  Because of that, I plan on rockin and partying for another twenty or thirty years.  That’s cool to me.  Being dead is not.  Their party is over forever.

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