Bulletin Board of Bad Behavior

LOS ANGELES/NEW YORK (Billboard) - Guitarist Robert Quine, one of punk rock's most daring soloists, was found dead Saturday in his New York apartment. He was 61.



According to close friend and guitar maker Rick Kelly, who discovered Quine's body, the musician died of a heroin overdose Memorial Day weekend. He had been despondent over the recent death of his wife.


Born in Akron, Ohio, Quine was heavily influenced by the Velvet Underground, whose music he recorded obsessively while living in San Francisco. He moved to New York in 1971 and became the lead guitarist for bassist Richard Hell's important group the Voidoids, with whom he recorded two albums. His skittering, unpredictable work with Hell defined the possibilities of punk guitar.


During the '80s, he recorded and toured frequently with Lou Reed (news) and played on saxophonist/composer John Zorn's best-known albums. Quine made key guest appearances on Tom Waits (news)' "Rain Dogs" (1985) and Marianne Faithfull (news)'s "Strange Weather" (1987). In 1989, he began a long association with Matthew Sweet (news); he also worked regularly with Lloyd Cole (news).


In 2001, Universal released a three-CD box of Quine's live 1969 recordings of the Velvet Underground, "The Bootleg Series Volume 1: The Quine Tapes."


"Robert Quine was a magnificent guitar player -- an original and innovative tyro of the vintage beast," Reed said in a statement released to Billboard.com. "He was an extraordinary mixture of taste, intelligence and rock 'n' roll abilities coupled with major technique and a scholar's memory for every decent guitar lick ever played under the musical son. He made tapes for me for which I am eternally grateful -- tapes of the juiciest parts of solos from players long gone. Quine was smarter than them all. And the proof is in the recordings, some of which happily are mine. If you can find more interesting sounds and musical clusters than Quine on 'Waves of Fear' (from Reed's 1982 album "The Blue Mask"), well, it's probably something else by Robert."


"He was a marvelous guitarist, a soulful music lover with high standards and had an eviscerating wit," Patti Smith (news) Band drummer Jay Dee Daugherty told Billboard.com. "He did not suffer fools gladly, but made up for it with a thinly disguised generosity of spirit."

Wow. I didn't know that much about this guy. Interesting. Since I'm assuming the "guest" is Tommy, though, did you know John McGeoch, the ex-guitarist of Magazine and Siouxsie & Banshees died not too long ago? He apparently was in PIL for awhile too, but not until their later period.

guest was me.

Oh. Well I thought of that, too. I hate this guest thing. I think guests should be banned unless they're really guests.
I don't even think the little box you check to log you in automatically even works.

I know it doesn't work. I'd have over 3,000 posts if it did. Not that I'm far away from that anyway.

That is sad news about John McGeoch. I would have put him somewhere between forty five and fifty.

I met him and Dave Formula once. (For anybody who is not Marky, Dave Formula played the keyboards in Magazine) They were both more than polite to a snotty scouse know it all and gave me their autographs.

As always on occasions like this I ask, "Why couldn't it be Steven Tyler?"

If Liv ever needs a shoulder to cry on...

Well, because then we'd have to put up with endless Aerosmith retrospectives, which along with the Reagan ones, would be far too much to bear wouldn't it?

Actually McGeoch was another one of those you could file under the odd category 'became a victim of the needle, but still didn't die from the needle' much like Nico falling off a bike to her own death.

Steve Severin from the Banshees issued a statement saying McGeoch was always his (and the rest of the band's) favorite Banshees guitarist. I feel sorry for the Banshees these days, I really do. Last I heard, they were supposed to have their whole back catalogue reissued on CD, remastered and all that, and they haven't been able to get their record company to do jack shit. They're supposed to play here soon I think, but I refuse to go see big name acts anymore due to the outrageous ticket prices.

Man oh man.

this is from NYC Scribbles...


'See I didn't know what store I was going into. I had imagined that Second hand Rose was on St. Mark's were Robert Quine, the guitarist for Richard Hell, and on occasion even Lester, used to live.'

Now they are both dead.