The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (107 page)

Tracy Pew, often described as ‘Australia’s Sid Vicious’, only resembled the former Sex Pistol in one sense. In his homeland, at least, he was an iconic figure (and of course he died young) – but the main difference between them was that Pew could actually play bass a bit. Inspired by glam/schlock acts like Alice Cooper and The New York Dolls, The Boys Next Door were formed in Melbourne by Caulfield grammar-school friends Pew, Nick Cave (vocals), Rowland S Howard (guitar), Mick Harvey (various instruments) and Phil Calvert (drums). Changing their name, to that of a Harold Pinter play, The Birthday Party proceeded to become one of alternative rock’s best-kept secrets before storming the UK in 1980. The band were not for the faint-hearted: driven by Cave’s savage imagery (which continues within his work to this day), The Birthday Party became a huge draw, attracting art-rock lovers, punks and goths alike – though their highly original shtick fell in somewhere with contemporaries The Cramps, The Fall and Pere Ubu. A series of gut-wrenching albums, of which
Junkyard
(1982) is arguably the best, made the group’s name, mainly in Europe. On stage, Stetson- and leather-clad Pew proved an excellent stooge to frontman Cave’s stripped-to-the-waist posturing, his snaky basslines underpinning the Party sound. That is, when the genial musician’s predilections would allow it – Pew often imbibed to the point of OD off stage and in 1982 was arrested for drunk-driving. With other offences such as unpaid fines taken into consideration, Pew served two and a half months inside. The Birthday Party had run its course by the end of the next year, ending with a couple of great EPs,
The Bad Seed
and
Mutiny!
While Cave went on to form a band named after the former, Pew toured with top Aussie stalwarts The Saints.

Like lan Curtis of Joy Division (
May 1980),
Tracy Pew was prone to epileptic seizures, in his case exacerbated by heavy drug use. In July 1986, the bass-player suffered a fit while lying in his bathtub; the resultant head injuries were so severe that Pew died from a brain haemorrhage. In bleak irony, the academic Pew had cleaned up considerably at the time of his death and re-entered university. (At least three different dates exist for Pew’s death – this appears to be the accurate one.)

See also
Rowland S Howard (
December
2009)

AUGUST

Wednesday 6

Michael Rudetsky

(New York, 1959)

Culture Club

For years, Boy George convinced the world that his favourite indulgence was a cup of tea. The ebullient Mr O’Dowd may well have preferred Darjeeling to sex, but in 1986 his horrified fanbase watched agog as the Culture Club vocalist’s previously hidden habits were exposed by the tabloids. However, the scandal’s worst casualty was to be visiting American keyboardist Michael Rudetsky.

With a seemingly firm grip on the UK’s record-buyers having slipped in the past couple of years, Culture Club had made a stuttering Top Ten comeback with the (appositely titled) 1986 album
From Luxury to Heartache
and a brace of moderate hit singles. On this album, New Yorker Rudetsky – who had become a friend and acolyte of Boy George’s – supplied keyboards. In return, somebody supplied the American with hard drugs. Later in the week that Boy George’s own drug habit was revealed, Rudetsky’s body was found in the singer’s London flat, where he had been staying on his own. A post mortem revealed that an overdose of heroin was the cause of death. With the British media going into meltdown over the frontman’s disclosure, Rudetsky as a person and musician was almost forgotten – and the band inevitably broke up amid the furore.

SEPTEMBER

Saturday 27

Cliff Burton

(San Francisco, California, 10 February 1962)

Metallica

(Trauma)

(Various acts)

A talented musician born to hippy parents, introverted Cliff Burton took an unlikely musical path – he is considered by metal fans to be one of the most innovative bassists of all time. Encouraged by his mother to study Bach and Beethoven, Burton rapidly grasped classical progressions; during his adolescence he was already applying this knowledge to his bass-playing. To his appreciation of classical and jazz (Burton namechecked bass virtuoso Stanley Clarke many times), the young musician added the aggression he’d found in the California and London punk scenes. Carrying this formidable armoury, Burton met Big Jim Martin (later of Faith No More) and briefly formed Vicious Hatred, an experimental hard-rock act, which practised out in the wilds of northern California. Later, as bass-player with emerging Bay Area metal band Trauma, Cliff Burton was reluctant to up sticks and leave his beloved home town when Metallica’s persistent drummer, Lars Ulrich, began urging him to join the LA-based thrash pioneers at the end of 1982. The solution was simple: Burton insisted that Ulrich and the rest of the band – James Hetfield (guitar/vocals) and Dave Mustaine (guitar, shortly thereafter replaced by Kirk Hammett) should relocate to San Francisco. So determined were Metallica to get their man that they did. It proved a wise move. With Burton on board, Metallica became an awesome proposition, making serious commercial inroads while sticking to their ‘extreme’ roots. The band’s first albums,
Kill ‘Em All
(1983) and
Ride the Lightning
(1984) showed a healthy distance from the metal posturing of the day – both featuring some great Burton cameos. Record number three,
Master Of Puppets
(1986), shifted half a million copies in the US alone (largely unheard of for a group snubbed by the production-line output of MTV et al). Burton became a fans’ favourite: polite and reserved off stage, he was loved for his dextrous playing, wild performances and his informal T-shirt-and-flared-jeans appearance.

Without radio or television exposure, Metallica, like many extreme rock bands, relied on solid touring to get their message across. To support
Master Of Puppets,
the band embarked upon a gruelling schedule of European dates that took them into Scandinavia, where they were immensely popular (Ulrich being of Danish extraction). Following a well-attended gig at a cinema in Solna, Sweden, Metallica happily signed autographs before boarding the larger of their entourage’s two luxury coaches to head for the next destination, Copenhagen, where Ulrich’s friends waited, having set up a post-concert party for the band. High spirits continued well into the journey, Burton and Hammett playing cards to see who would take the bigger bunk, much like the Tommy Allsup/Richie Valens gamble ahead of Buddy Holly’s air crash (
Pre-1965).
This time, the fatal hand landed with Burton.

Cliff Burton: Hair-raising capers

‘Touring has become more pleasant now we have a better bus and stuff.’

Cliff Burton, interviewed the day before his death by writer Jorgen Holmstedt

At around 6.50 am, Metallica’s bus carried its sleeping passengers along the E4 motorway through the quiet region of Smaland, some fifteen miles from Ljungby. Possibly having fallen asleep at the wheel, the driver suddenly hit a ditch, pulling the coach sharply back up on to the road and attempting to regain control of the steering. At this point, the driver claimed that the vehicle hit a patch of black ice (which is disputed by Swedish press photographer Lennart Wennberg, among the first eyewitnesses at the scene), skidding across the road and then crashing violently into another ditch. Inside, most of those asleep had been thrown from their bunks, but Burton had been thrown clean through one of the windows. As the bus teetered and then tipped over, the bass-player was crushed beneath its vast chassis. Hetfield said: ‘I saw our bus lying on top of Cliff, with his leg sticking out. I went to pieces.’ The devastated band and crew – most escaping with superficial or short-term injury – soon got confirmation at a Ljungby hospital that Burton hadn’t made it.