Jean-Michel Basquiat

Jean-Michel Basquiat (December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988).

Untitled, 1982. Thanatos, anyone?

Career: visual artist and musician. Cause of death: heroin overdose, possibly compounded by intravenous coadministration of cocaine.

The prodigious talent of Jean-Michel Basquiat first surfaced in the SAMO tag on the walls of Lower Manhattan. His work as SAMO garnered some media attention due to their unusual deployment: his scrawled & copyrighted SAMO moniker (referring to his slang for 'same old' dirt weed) alongside cryptic lines of street poetry: "Life is confusing at this point. SAMO©" "SAMO© for the so-called avant-garde." The bomb SAMO IS DEAD signalled the end of this period of Basquiat's work.

Subsequently, the down-and-out multilinguial Basquiat formed a band with the still virile and ridiculously multi-talented bastard Vincent Gallo. This project, called Gray, made wicked post-punk experimental electronic ambient klang whee that featured on the most excellent film Downtown '81, a film document of the early-80s Lower East Side art scene made by the Lower East Side art scene for the members of the Lower Eat side art scene plus I suppose those who wanna be the Lower East Side art scene. Like Madonna, with whom Basquiat dated for a bit.

Basquiat's profile slowly built to the point where he was associated with the Neo-Expressionist movement, regularly exhibiting with artists such as Julian Schnabel, who would make a film about Basquiat after his death. In 1982, he met Andy Warhol, and the two would collaborate for the next two years, until Warhol's death/simulacral precession beyond the horizon of mortal presence.

At his pinnacle, he rubbed shoulders with David Bowie, these shoulders clad in $1000 Armani suits which he painted and partied in, paint-splattered, elegantly wasted, having laid claim to the dubious honour of first international art star of African descent. Dubious because such an honour is surely bestowed by canon-making/purchasing wealthy white men, as per.















After Warhol, Basquiat became increasingly isolated, and his heroin addiction and depression became more severe. A shortlived sobriety trip to Hawaii was of no avail. The young talented hotheaded Basquiat died of a heroin overdose (possibly a speedball*) in his SoHo New York studio.

*Speedball: usu. intravenously administered admixture of heroin and cocaine. It's like when you mix raspberry and coke(-a-cola) from the soda fountain into one tall, iced hit of a softdrink draught for that added tastebud-busting whee. 

Chris Bell

Christopher Branford "Chris" Bell (January 12, 1951 – December 27, 1978).

Original line-up of Big Star. Chris Bell, second from left.

Career: musician. Cause of death: auto accident.

Chris Bell left Alex Chilton's power pop group Big Star in 1972, continuing to struggle with depression stemming partly from his repressed homosexuality and his dependence on heroin which he tried to deal with through a strong belief in Christianity. Neither of these three vices killed him, though.

Bell died in the middle of the night after he lost control of his Triumph TR-7 sports car on his way home from his father's restaurant in East Memphis, Tennessee. His car struck a wooden light pole on the side of the road, killing him instantly. The TR-7 is generally praised for its good handling, if suffering from slightly heavy turning. One can only speculate whether repression viz a viz homosexuality, heroin dependence, post-prandial slumber, or a misplaced belief in divine provenance are compounding factors in this accident.

Yonder TR7: good handling, chick magnet, but heavy on the wheel.

Bell's funeral, held the next day, was the birthday of former band mate Chilton, who as of 2010 is recently deceased. We looked very fine / As we were leaving. RIP.

Eye on the road, Bell.

D. Boon

Dennes Dale Boon, April 1, 1958 – December 22, 1985.

How not to drive safely (still from Minutemen doco, below)

Career: punk musician. Cause of death: ejection from motor vehicle.

The first post, I think, where membership in the 27 Club was gained by force majeure, rather than drugs, booze, or soul reclamation upon fulfillment of Faustian pact. Thus, a uniquely inflected entry into the always already melancholic 27 club canon.

D. Boon, the guitarist and vocalist for most excellent cowabunga Californian punk trio The Minutemen, took his name from his slang for cannabis, weed, shit, green, trees, sticky icky, dope, D, but also because it sounded like Daniel Boone and E. Bloom, the Blue Öyster Cult's vocalist and guitarist.

Boon, right: munchies. Fattening, but not acutely fatal.

On tour, Boon was suffering from a fever, lying down in the back of the tour van with no seatbelt. Bad idea. In the Arizona Desert, perhaps in a cosmically unlikely patch of black ice or perhaps due to a mirage the van veered off the road. Upon crashing, gravity's rainbow took control of the prone Boon's body, flinging it like a slightly overweight ragdoll out the back van doors. Breaking his neck, he died instantly.

The band, which had formed in the wake of Mike Watt encountering Boon prophetically falling from a tree (see video), immediately dissolved.

The Minutemen - We Jam Econo Trailer

Dave Alexander

David Michael Alexander (June 3, 1947 – February 10, 1975).

Career: rock musician. Cause of death: pancreatitis, compounded by alcohol abuse.

"What happened to Zeke?
He's dead on Jones, man.
How about Dave?
O.D'd on alcohol."
- Iggy Pop (& David Bowie).  'Dum Dum Boys', The Idiot (1977).

So begins Iggy Pop's paean to his lost stooges, namechecking Alexander amongst the fallen.

Dave Alexander was the bassist in the Stooges, credited as the primary composer of the music for the Stooges songs "We Will Fall", "Little Doll", "Dirt" and "1970". Fired from the band in 1970 after turning up for a big gig too drunk to play, he died of pulmonary edema in 1975 after being admitted to a hospital for pancreatitis aggravated by heavy drinking.

Alexander, second from right.

He has since been eulogised by Dave Watt of the Minutemen, whose guitarist D Boon is also a 27 Club member.

Robert Johnson

Robert Leroy Johnson, May 8, 1911 – August 16, 1938.

Possibly not Johnson. 

Career: bluesman. Cause of death: possible strychinine poisoning, possible reclamation of soul by the Devil.

After playing for a few weeks at a country dance in a town near Greenwood, Mississippi, Johnson was spotted flirting with the wife of the juke joint's owner.  The two drank together, but the bottle of whisky had been poisoned by the cuckolded proprietor. Sonny Boy Williamson advised Johnson to "ne'er drink from an bottle offered open", but Johnson merely replied "Don' ne'er knock no bottle from my han'", and continued on to a second poisoned bottle.

Whether due to the simple fact that whisky is alcoholic or to the fact that the whisky had indeed been laced with rat poison, Johnson began to feel ill, and was helped to his lodgings in the small hours.  He was wracked by convulsions and pain, symptoms consistent with strychnine poisoning, for three days until he succumbed.

But could these convulsive pains be the symptoms of the soul being tugged from its mortal coil by the long, BBQ-utensil-like fingers of the Devil or at least a devilish henchman such as Mephistopheles or perhaps the puppeteering of a non-Judaeo-Christian deity such as Papa Legba, the Vodou Loki-like trickster intermediary associated with crossroads and divine communication? Perhaps.

A non-black Mephistopheles still getting sus looks from whitefolk.

Legba, ostensibly. Possibly a simple dildo salesman.

The legend goes that young Johnson was struck by the breath of inspiration, as it were, to sek his greatness in blues. "Instructed" to take his guitar to a crossroad the plantation where he lived, at midnight,  he was met by a large black man (Devil/Mephistopheles/Legba/errant guitar-tuner), who took the guitar and tuned it. The dude played a few songs before returning the guitar to Johnson, sealing a Faustian pact in which Johnson's soul would be exchanged for the ability to create the blues like no one else. It appears the contract was fulfilled at age 27.

Gibson rests on Johnson RIP.

No one knows where Johnson is buried, which hasn't prevented large record companies staking out various plots with large cenotaphs etc.

Some folks like water / Some folks like wine / Well I like the taste / Of straight Strychnine

Brian Jones

Brian Jones, 28 February 1942 - 3 July 1969.

Fingers weren't the only things Jones put up his nose.

Career: Rock musician. Cause of Death: misadventure, probably complicated by drug & alcohol abuse, possibly murder.

Winnie-the-Pooh looks before he leaps.

Estranged from the Rolling Stones, Jones met his death in the swimming pool at Winnie the Pooh writer A A Milne's Cotchford Farm cottage. 

Last seen by a schoolgirl appearing "bloated, with deep-set eyes" Jones was found at midnight motionless at the bottom of his swimming pool at Cotchford Farm. The coroner's report stated "death by misadventure", and noted his liver and heart were heavily enlarged by drug and alcohol abuse.

Jones' Swedish girlfriend insisted that when Jones was fished from the pool he was still alive, and has accused a builder at the cottage of Jones' murder. The builder, Frank Thorogood, allegedly confessed to the murder on his deathbed to the Rolling Stones' driver, Tom Keylock, who later denied this. Many items, such as instruments and expensive furniture, reportedly were stolen from the home after Jones's death.

Jones was reportedly buried 12 feet deep in Cheltenham Cemetery (to prevent exhumation by trophy hunters) in a lavish casket sent by Bob Dylan. This is twice the normal depth and deep enough to bury two quite tall men standing up, even if one was standing on the other's shoulders.

Mick Jagger has acted as an apologist for accusations that Jones' drug-augmented lifestyle lead to his drug-augmented death-style, stating "Things like LSD were all new. No one knew the harm. People thought cocaine was good for you."

Jones and Keith "Cannot Be Killed By Conventional Weapons" Richards: poolside. 

Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix, November 27, 1942 - September 18, 1970.

Bud?

Career: rock musician. Cause of death: asphyxiation by aspirated vomit following drug and alcohol use. Possibly murder.

The death of Jimi Hendrix is shrouded in haze, of a shade more wine-coloured than purple. As the canonical report goes, Jimi's girlfriend Monika Dannemann took the Greatest Electric Gitsman in Rock History back to her Notting Hill flat where, unbeknownst to her, he took 9 pills of her prescribed sleeping pills, a nasty brand of Secobarbital nastily named Vesperax. These German sleepers were far stronger than the pale-as-milky-tea British barbiturates that Jimi had become accustomed to – 9 reds on top of the large amount of red wine he had also ingested at that night's party and he was overcome, a comatose vomit consisting mostly of said wine flooding his already sluggish lungs. It's a classic rock death and a classic demonstration of the adage "wine auf beer ist fine, wine auf massive dose of downers ist nein".

Jimi's arrest photo: that hash and heroin isn't mine.

Again, as with Brian Jones, items were missing from the scene of death. And again, there's been rumours of murder. Former Animals roadie James "Tappy" Wright has claimed that Hendrix's manager Mike Jeffery admitted he'd had Hendrix killed because the rock star wanted to end his management contract.

A sad and twisted hex bookends the Hendrix saga. Dannemann, whose vague and contradictory recollections of Jimi's last night muddied the already dirty water and brought her scorn from suspicious legions, had been facing a libel case brought against her by Hendrix's long-term English girlfriend Kathy Etchingham. In Dannemann's words, Etchingham "was trying to put the finger on me". In 1996, in a Mercedes and faced with the voodoo child of Jimi's decades-ago death, a retiring and broke Dannemann gassed herself to death. 

Lucky Lager?

Visit the site of Hendrix's aspiration/asphyxiation in London:

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Janis Joplin

Janis Joplin, January 19, 1943 - October 4, 1970(1970-10-04).

Taking stock.

Career: musician. Cause of death: heroin overdose, possibly compounded by the effects of alcohol.

Despite her famously throatily powerful voice, Joplin's death was a quiet one. All set to record her vocal track for a song called "Buried Alive in the Blues", she failed to show up to the studio. Concerned Full Tilt Boogie road manager John Cooke drove to Joplin's hotel, checking Joplin's psychedelic Porsche still in the parking lot.

High grade: Not likely to get stuck behind the Merry Pranksters' tour bus.

He found her dead in her room. The official cause of death was listed as an overdose of heroin, or H, possibly combined with the effects of alcohol. Joplin was one of a number of her dealers' customers that had overdosed on unusually strong heroin that week.

Hash cookies were handed out at her funeral. Amongst those attending was fiancée and one-off novelist Seth Morgan, who was killed the day after his Oct 16 1990 arrest for DUI on the eve of literary success with his new novel when he crashed his motorbike into a cement embankment below a bridge in New Orleans drunk and high on coke.  

Cold Comfort.

(1943-01-19)

Jim Morrison

James Douglas "Jim" Morrison, December 8, 1943 - July 3, 1971.

And here we were thinking you were dead! You're good you.

Career: rock musician. Cause of death: unknown/he's not dead.

Jim Morrison was found dead in the bathtub of his Paris apartment. In Match of that year Morrison had come to Paris, shaved his head, lost a lot of weight, and begun recording with two American street musicians what some have called a collection of "drunken gibberish."


Because the French medical examiner found no evidence of foul play, no autopsy was performed, leaving ample room for speculation as to Morrison's death as well as ample room for the medical examiner to carefully louche and enjoy his Pernod, wax his mustaches, and contemplate baguette.

Heroin. Actually demerara sugar. Neither should be insufflated.

Speculation I: girlfriend Pamela Courson says that Morrison died after accidentally snorting some heroin that he thought was cocaine. Associates Alain Ronay and filmmaker Agnès Varda broke cover 20 years after Morrison's death to state that they arrived at the apartment shortly after Morrison's death. There, Courson told them that she and Morrison had taken heroin after a night of drinking. Morrison had been coughing badly, had gone to take a bath, and vomited blood. Courson said that he appeared to recover and that she then went to sleep. When she awoke sometime later Morrison was unresponsive, aka dead. Ronay's slightly different account holds that Morrison haemorhaged but Courson nodded off before summoning help. Either way, Courson herself died of a heroin overdose three years later. Like Morrison, she was 27 years old at the time of her death. Again a case of Fearful Symmetry.

Attempting to drink a tube of solid Life.

Speculation II: that Morrison had asthma and had been coughing up and throwing up blood like a right consumptive for months after getting all old school Bohemian in Paris. This theory holds that all-grown-up street-urchinism, not a drug overdose, was the cause of death.

Speculation III: The 1980 edition of No One Gets Out of Here Alive circulated the silly rumour that Morrison was had faked his death, presumably to free him from rock-stardom so he could pursue a more authentic life recording collections of free-spirited (drunken) gibberish with other free spirits (drunks) while consuming cheap, not free, spirits (drinking). The 1995 edition discounted this rumour, if not the price of drink.

Arrested for excessively crossed-eyes.

Speculation IV (hah): In 2007, 'close friend' Sam Bernett resurrected the rumour that Morrison died of a heroin overdose in the Rock'n'Roll Circus nightclub on Paris' Left Bank. The story goes that Morrison bought heroin for Courson at the club but couldn't wait to dig in, did some himself and died in the bathroom. His body was then moved back to his apartment and dumped in the bathtub by the drug dealers. All witnesses were sworn to secrecy, while some immediately left the country.


I'd like to say this is the end, beautiful friend – it ain't, but it'll have to do.

Let sleeping dogs lie.

Kurt Cobain

Kurt Donald Cobain, February 20, 1967 - circa April 5, 1994.

Career: grunge rocker. Cause of death: self-inflicted shotgun wound, possibly other-inflicted shotgun wound.

I am fine.

Cobain's attempt to commit suicide by overdosing on champagne & Rohypnol in early 1994 was the first turn of a downward spiral precipitated by a debilitating bronchitic and laryngitic condition. Following an intervention by friends and record company execs, Cobain agreed to detox at the Exodus Recovery Center in LA. Cobain promptly vaulted the fence, hopped on a plane with nemesis-band Guns N' Roses' Duff McKagan, and hid out in Seattle.

Cobain was found by an electrician who had come to install a security system at Cobain's Lake Washington home. The electrician thought Cobain was asleep until he saw a shotgun pointing at his chin. At this point the electrician did not think Cobain was asleep. The electrician can perhaps be forgiven for his lack of observational skills considering that only a small amount of blood had dribbled from Cobain's ear. This is not consistent with the massive trauma inflicted by a shotgun blast at point-blank range, but is perhaps consistent with severe hearing damage that can be inflicted by the rock'n'roll side of the sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll triangle.

The classic triangle is, however, not so relevant here. Rather, just as the electrician eventually connected the dots like so many breadboard circuit components, drugs and guns are like a massive but only two-pieced jigsaw puzzle in this, and so many other, rock star deathtales in which drugs and guns are underlined in bold but where the adjuncts of sex and rock'n'roll are indexed by little superscripted numerals that refer to footnotes or worse endnotes in a book whose rear sections have become water-damaged due to careless storage against a damp wall or on a messy coffee table most often used to support wobbly bongs and easily upset drinking vessels such as long stemmed wine-glasses not to mention hairline-cracked mugs of beer and cheap mixed drinks not coffee mostly.

The similarly rambling, scrawled suicide note found at the scene was addressed to Cobain's childhood imaginary friend Boddah, and related his years-long experience of no longer enjoying listening to or creating music. It is thus faint praise to note that Cobain killed himself after listening to R.E.M.'s Automatic For The People. A great album. Not so great was the high concentration of heroin and traces of Valium found in his body, which had been lying there for days. This, besides an inability to tap into the affirmative message of Automatic People, was fatally juxtaposed with a shotgun, one of many he owned. This particular one was bought for him by drone-metal group Earth's Dylan Carlson, who also introduced Cobain to heroin. Heroin in the heart, heart crossed by boomstick. Bad geometry.

Perhaps this whole drugcluster suicide mess is mostly irrelevant too, if we are to believe that Cobain was murdered. The private investigator hired to track down Cobain in his Last Days alleges that the amount of heroin in Cobain's body was far too much for him to have pulled the trigger. There suicide note has spawned a body of conflicting textual analysis, interpretation, and attribution. Fingerprints were and were not found on the shotgun. The police report is dubious. Passing a polygraph test, the Mentors' El Duce claimed that Courtney Love offered him $50,000 to kill Cobain. This last contributes to the classic Sid (Vicious) & Nancy (Spungen) mirror often held up to the Cobain/Courtney affair.

The murder theory is doubtful, however. There was a history of mental illness and gun suicide in the Cobain family, and his sister claimed that as a kid Cobain said he wanted to join the 27 Club. More plausibly, why didn't Cobain, in offing himself, simply syringe up, fire & forget into the eternal fog? Then again, if we are to retain the murder theory, why write a note, pull the trigger and arrange the scene when you can simply slip in an overdose of heroin?

Then again.