Tawdry ends of rock and rollers

Well, Janis.

Steve Marriott accidentally burned his own house down and himself with it. Oddly he had a previous incident where he purposely started a fire. Makes one wonder.

Brian Jones drowned in his swimming pool in a house once owned by AA Milne, creator of Winnie the Pooh. He had been fired from the Rolling Stones, the band he created, not long before.

Layne Staley had long lost all his teeth and weight to drugs. He'd had gangrene and couldn't digest food so drank shakes. He was found in a chair, rotting, fingers having fallen off. His body weighed 85 pounds (he was over 6 feet tall) and had been dead for 2 weeks.

His cat was fine.

r4, WHAT!

lol, what what r5?

There was another rocker that died in a hotel room (I think someone who was popular either in the 90s or 2000s) and apparently was no stranger to hooking up with men. I'm fairly certain it was here I heard about it, but damned if I can recall who it was (not Layne Staley). Not Chris Cornell either, although he was found in a hotel room.

Of course, we have the overdosers - Scott Weiland, Shannon Hoon amongst them.

R4 / rescue-chick is correct. Staley's deterioration and death were absolutely gruesome. It would be hard to top that one.

Sorry, Bradley Nowell as well. he was found in a hotel room in SF, but he wasn't who was I was thinking of either.

Jimi

Jani Lane, R7?

Tom Fogerty died of AIDS due to a blood transfusion.

Jani Lane from Warrant died of alcohol poisoning at a Comfort Inn days after having had sex with a Datalounger.

Michael Hutchence (INXS) became an increasingly seedy, drugged out louche… until finally he hung himself dead and the scenario lookec to be sexual auto-asphyxiation gone wrong.

Stuart Adamson, R7?

Bobby Fuller

r11 - yes, that's it!

^^it was Jani Lane.

r12 - didn't know that Tom Fogerty died from complications of AIDS from a blood transfusion. AI described him as transgendered, which I also was unaware of.

Jani Lane fucked a Datalounger.

And then he died.

Mamma Cass + Ham & Cheese on Rye

Both Bon Scott of AC/DC and John Bonham of Led Zeppelin died in 1980, six months apart, from choking on their own vomit after a night of heavy drinking.

Damn that brings the lyrics to "Baker Street" more hard hitting.

And Jimi Hendrix also died from *choking on his own vomit* (pulmonary aspiration) after a drug overdose.

Pete Townsend? Did anything ever happen at that child porn arrest?

I was doing research

R24- No, nothing and he used his own credit card to access a child porn website. I have hated him since then. Disgusting that he faced no consequences because of his fame and no money.

Amy Winehouse, alcohol poisoning

Justin Townes Earle, alcohol/cocaine/fentanyl, found after 3 days

Jim Morrison, found in his bathtub in Paris allegedly of congestive heart failure, but widely believed to have died from a heroin overdose.

And let us not forget another music legend found in a bathtub - Whitney Houston. Not sure she can be described as a rock and roller, though. However, it was worth mentioning alongside Jim Morrison.

Steve Harwell of Smash Mouth died of liver failure from chronic alcoholism.

Alice in Chains bassist, Mike Starr, died of drug overdose after years of addiction. The former lead singer of Alice in Chains, Layne Staley also died of a drug overdose.

r29 Layne Staley was already covered in gory detail just four posts into the thread at r4.

Tom Petty, dying from an overdose of opioids at the age of 66 in a hotel room. If he hadn’t toured with a fractured hip, and taken the time off to have it fixed, he’d probably still be alive.

Elvis Presley. Enuff said.

Prince Rogers Nelson - fentanyl toxicity.

R20 you are a fucking idiot

All these people were great but Prince was an absolute icon what a loss

I think it could be argued that there are several other individuals mentioned here that deserve the title of "icon" alongside Prince: Jimi Hendrix, Tom Petty, Mama Cass, Elvis Presley, Jim Morrison, Whitney Houston...the list goes on.

So many lives lost, and a huge portion of them to drugs and alcohol.

It seems like throughout history, musicians have sad endings.

R36 OK true I stand corrected, I was just personally saddest about Prince.

Saddest? Most sad? Tomato tomahto.

Since there are periodic threads about the premature deaths of gay porn stars as though that's a uniquely dangerous profession, it's probably a good thing to see some examples from other professions.

r37, I think you might need to qualify that statement to read "rock musicians", although many jazz musicians also had sad and difficult lives.

Cass Elliot died of a heart attack, not by choking. The ham sandwich was put out at the time because her family/friends/doctor didn't want people thinking she died of a drug overdose. But the story I heard is that the heart attack may have been brought on by pills she was taking to help her lose weight.

Isn't it like the oldest joke in the world that if Mama Cass had just given Karen Carpenter that ham sandwich, they'd both still be alive?

I love you R42

r40, many classical composers have had tragic lives-Beethoven, Schumann, Mozart, and Mahler for example.

John Entwistle: Vegas, hookers and blow.

Who is Layne Staley?

Jim Morrison. I wasn’t even alive but I’m still bummed out

From Alice In Chains r48. It’s weird the place he died in is a. Inconspicuous condo in the u district of Seattle

What am I? Chopped liver?

R46 Google

Good entry, r49.

[quote]many classical composers have had tragic lives

this thread is about tawdry, not tragic

Gram Parsons, look it up. It's actually hilarious but maybe I'm fucked up.

Not tawdry but the end of the dude from the manic street preachers was sad

Shifty Shellshock Had a really sad death in a flop house

What about me!?

^ M. Jackson

R45 Excellent bass player, though. The Who were an outstanding band.

Mea culpa, I did unnecessa4iky repeat Layne Staley. One of those unfortunate senior moments.

Janis Joplin, very sad loss to heroin addiction.

Michael Hutchence. They say he hung himself but others pointed to erotic asphyxiation. I loved his voice.

Sam Cooke

I would have thought that Jimmy Page would die tawdrily (?) but he’s healthy, has stable and successful children who love him and lives the life of a London gent in his massive home.

Marvin Gaye murdered by his father. Ghastly.

Carl Wilson

r63 same with mick jagger, though he was never especially reckless or tawdry.

Whoops -- I meant Dennis Wilson, who drowned

R61 are you able to read others’ posts beside your own?

The thread police won't give me no peace.

R53 Gram Parsons' death and its aftermath was fucked up.

If anyone wants to know more, here is a link to an Substack blog giving the details. Reading about his childhood, he seemed destined for a tragic end.

It’s magic r63

Elvis!

Those Jani Lane threads were just about the best that ever appeared here.

God, that article at r70 was a chore to try to read. I ended up skimming it and still didn't get a clear answer on how he actually died.

R74 The pertinent excerpts from the article at R70:

[Quote] Soon word filtered out that he’d likely ODed, then his body hijacked from a hearse at L.A. International Airport and taken to the desert, at Joshua Tree--and burned by his former manager, Phil Kaufman. This was the same Phil who earlier had produced an album by an aspiring rock star he met in prison after a marijuana bust, named Charles Manson. Police had actually labeled the latest Kaufman case “Gram Theft Parsons.” One cop was quoted by the AP: “It looks like something out of Transylvania, out of the legend of Count Dracula.” Authorities had been alerted by campers that “a log was burning near the monument.”

[Quote] The sad, mundane truth: Gram had consumed a prodigious amount of booze, probably tequila, and shot up some morphine he had just scored at a local Swap Meet. Girls left him alone to get some Mexican food and found him near death, or dead, when they returned. One of them apparently thought jerking him off would revive him. Al Barbary gave him mouth-to-mouth but quit quickly, when he “just about got sick, there was so much poison in him.”

[Quote] Kaufman claimed he’d had a death pact with Gram—whoever died first would have his body burned by the survivor. Gram’s stepfather had wanted the body shipped back to New Orleans for legal/estate reasons. Phil managed to secure the casket at the airport by claiming the family had changed its mind and, since he was driving a hearse, had no trouble signing for it.

[Quote] Kaufman and a friend were fined just $300 plus restitution for the burned casket. The body (a charred log) did get shipped to New Orleans for burial, after all that.

[Quote] The owner of the motel, Frank Barbary, where Gram died and his son, Al, who found the body, finally went on the record about the fatal night. Al said, “His heart stopped, all right--‘cause he went into a coma.”

Janis Joplin was broke and strung out. Marvin Gaye was broke, then murdered. Sid Vicious, obviously.

Sid Vicious murdered Marvin Gaye? That would be an extra-tawdry ending.

Marvin Gaye Jr. had previously shown a wish to die. His brother and sister have said he physically assaulted his father, knowing that his father would kill him and then be blamed for it.

The father was a bastard who repeatedly beat up his wife and Marvin when he was younger.

[Quote] He was found wandering on the freeway, as if daring cars to hit him. More than once, he had talked of suicide — he admitted trying to do it with a cocaine overdose — but had not been able to go all the way. His father’s religion told him it was a mortal sin.

[Quote] Some in Gaye’s family, like his brother Frankie and sister Jeanne, concluded that Gaye had orchestrated his own death. She said her father had made it clear that if Marvin hit him, he would kill him.

[Quote] By provoking his father, he had ended his own misery and had freed his mother, who finally found the courage to leave her husband of 48 years.

[Quote] Ritz said he thinks of it less as a crime than a tragedy, and as an elaborately choreographed suicide that had the added effect of punishing the father. “He thought that because his father had killed him, his father would go to hell,” Ritz said.

[Quote] Some in Gaye’s family, like his brother Frankie and sister Jeanne, concluded that Gaye had orchestrated his own death. She said her father had made it clear that if Marvin hit him, he would kill him.

By provoking his father, he had ended his own misery and had freed his mother, who finally found the courage to leave her husband of 48 years.

Ritz said he thinks of it less as a crime than a tragedy, and as an elaborately choreographed suicide that had the added effect of punishing the father. “He thought that because his father had killed him, his father would go to hell,” Ritz said.

R64 R76

R78, thus proving my point. Tawdry.

Schubert died of Syphilis at age 31- is that tawdry?

R80 great loss to Rock N Roll

Stumpy Joe from Spinal Tap: Choked to death on someone else's vomit.

Stampy Peeps: The first drummer the first drummer of Spinal Tap who died in a bizarre gardening accident.

Mick Shrimpton of Spinal Tap: Spontaneously combusts during a show in Japan

But those were fabricated tawdry ends.

Fun fact: Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross hated each other.

R83 So say you! Watch the Marty DeBergi documentary!

I wasn't even born yet, but Jimi Hendrix was such a tragic loss. Imagine what else he would've done musically if he had lived. He was a true genius.

Pete Townsend is a genius. I saw his farewell show at MSG a few weeks ago....his lyrics and musicality are brilliant. I separate what he supposedly did with his talent

R87- I wish I could do that but I just can't. I despise him now and I used to be such a fan of his music.

I am still gutted over Chris Cornell's suicide. Best Rock singer ever! Gorgeous. Too hot to die.

r89 agree. Scott Weiland you might expect it from (and in the end, it was drugs that took him out which was no surprise), but Chris Cornell I didn't expect it from.

The band that sang one of my all time favorite songs, Baby Blue, had one of the most tragic endings:

The band that sang the power-pop classic "Baby Blue" was Badfinger, whose story is a tragic saga of betrayal by their manager, financial ruin, and the suicides of two of their core members. Though they were a successful group with ties to the Beatles' Apple Records, their promising career was cut short by mismanagement and misfortune.

Badfinger is the saddest fucking story of just how incredibly shitty the numbers side of the business can be. Stan Polley, one off the worst humans to grace the music industry, ever. I still get upset thinking about it. Plus, depression is deadly.

and didn't the lead singer of the Yardbirds electrocute himself in the bathtub?

R93- He sure did:

William Keith Relf* (22 March 1943 – 14 May 1976) was an English musician, best known as the lead vocalist and harmonica player for The Yardbirds. Relf was 33 when he died from electrocution, in the basement of his home, while playing his improperly earthed (electrically grounded) guitar.

Darby Crash, lead singer of the punk group the Germs, committed suicide by intentionally overdosing on heroin. Unfortunately his death was quickly swept under the rug less than 24 hours later by the murder of John Lennon. A concert photo of Crash on the poster for the documentary Decline of Western Civilization (released six months after his death) is iconic. There's also a pretty-good film bio about Crash called What We Do is Secret.

Roger Troutman, lead singer of the 80s funk group Zapp ("More Bounce to the Ounce") was on the verge of a comeback in 1999 when he was shot to death outside a recording studio by his brother/bandmate Larry. Larry then turned the gun on himself. For some reason, this struck me as incredibly sad.

Also, I watched Spike Lee's "Jungle Fever" a few nights ago; the Samuel L. Jackson and Ossie Davis characters are supposedly based on Marvin Gaye's relationship with his father.

Still love the Winehouse poster who said on the anniversary of her death......

"Happy sobriety anniversary, Amy!"

Can you think of any other living creature that is self-destructive, like so many members of the human species are?

What about split ends of rock and rollers?

R98 Lemmings?

Keith Moon, od.

Nico.

John Bonham, Led Zepplin drummer consumed an EXCESSIVE - 40 shots or more of vodka - in one day. It killed him.

Bonham was also on drugs to help with withdrawal of heroin. That guy liked to party hard.

Chester Bennington of Linkin Park, died of suicide a few months after Cornell. He had struggled to overcome alcohol and drug addiction, and said he’d been sexually abused by a male family friend between the ages of seven to thirteen.

I thought he had a great voice. Shadow of the Day is probably my favorite.

John Phillips. Doesn't get much more tawdry than a posthumous revelation of incest.

Michael Jackson. Decades of drug addiction, chronic secret alcoholic, half a billion dollars in debt. Died wearing a ratty wig in a rented house, his once handsome face ravaged and gruesome from endless surgeries. His reputation destroyed after he was exposed as a pedophile.

I opened a good bottle of wine the night he died to celebrate the cunts death.