The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (138 page)

Warmly remembered as the man who helped move folk music from the coffee bars into the charts, Dave Guard (vocals, banjo) met fellow Kingston Trio founders Nick Reynolds (guitar/vocals) and Bob Shane (guitar/vocals) while attending Menlo College in Palo Alto, California (‘Kingston’ was chosen on a whim). The three, who had initially performed just to earn beer, became massively popular at their San Francisco residency and signed to Capitol in 1958: by the end of that autumn a stunned Kingston Trio sat proudly at number one in the charts with the millionselling ‘Tom Dooley’. This worldwide hit prompted several lesser hit records (such as 1959’s splendid ‘MTA’ – an ode to Boston authorities’ sudden levying of subway taxes!) for an act whose pop status was to prove useful to the more leftfield exponents of folk. With a clutch of gold albums under their belts, The Trio were at their most potent before Guard left – to be replaced by John Stewart, with whom Guard would work in 1979 – forming his own less-successful Whiskyhill Singers in 1961.

Dave Guard fell victim to lymphoma while in Concord, New Hampshire. Having grown weary of the music business, he had previously emigrated to Australia.

See also
John Stewart (
January 2008); Nick Reynolds (
October 2008). Later Kingston Trio guitarist Roger Gambill died in 1985.

APRIL

Monday 8

Dead

(Pelle Yngve Ohlin - Sweden, 1969)

Mayhem

(Morbid)

So to the grim stuff… Even his disturbing contemporaries admit that Pelle Ohlin was one weird individual: an outcast who found release in his beloved black metal, he became Dead, a self-reviling messenger from the other side who claimed to believe that everything ‘normal’ (including himself) deserved to die. With most, one might brush this off as lurid nonsense – with Dead, it was a manifesto eventually followed to its depressing conclusion.

Norwegian band Mayhem – Euronymous Oystein Aarseth, guitar), Necrobutcher (Jorn Stubberard, bass) and Kjetil Manheim (drums, who destroyed his reputation by running off, marrying and becoming a businessman) – had a focus but no focal point. Until they found Dead. Original vocalist Maniac had attempted suicide and failed, bringing about his dismissal. A relocated Swede, Dead was much more the ticket and one could sort of tell he wasn’t going to let them down. Having picked the new singer from the rotting remains of the band Morbid, Mayhem were soon on their way to becoming the most infamous Norwegian act of all time (and there was some pretty serious competition). Replacing Manheim with Hellhammer (Jan Axel Blomberg), Mayhem set about perfecting their live show, preparations for which were, shall we say, ‘particular’. Dead – who now wrote most of the group’s material – buried his stage gear ahead of concerts so that it would rot and become maggot-infested. Having already carried a dead guinea pig around in his pocket, Dead now tried the between-song ritual of inhaling from a plastic bag containing a decomposing raven, in order that he might have the ‘essence of death’ within him as he sang. And it didn’t end there – one notable gig in Salpsborg in 1990 saw Mayhem take to the stage amid a display of impaled pig’s heads, which they then hurled into the crowd in order to disperse ‘wimps’. The singer’s more regular habit of cutting
himself
on stage was possibly brought into relief by such stunts, for beneath all the posturing was a dark and deeply troubled individual. Informing an unconvinced Hellhammer that he intended to kill himself with a sharp knife, Dead disappeared to the band’s shared house on the outskirts of Krakstad, where, by night, he carried out the deed, employing Euronymous’s shotgun when the cutting of his veins took too long. As if this weren’t enough, the rest of the story is the stuff of surreal myth.

Returning home, Euronymous found Dead’s body in eponymous state, clad in an ‘I Love Transylvania’ T-shirt; his suicide note read simply, ‘Sorry about all the blood!’ Excitedly, the guitarist raced back into town to buy film for his camera, the idea being – yes – to take photographs of Dead’s bloodied corpse for use on Mayhem’s next album cover (which he did). As the remaining band members sat around the body wondering what to do next, legend has it that someone – probably Euronymous – hit upon the notion of removing part of the dead singer’s brain matter, which the group should then all eat, to inherit Dead’s wisdom. And, incredibly, this they did: apparently – there’s no way to disguise this – in some kind of ragout complete with paprika and vegetables. Fragments of the singer’s skull were reportedly then removed and fashioned into necklaces for distribution among the leading death- and black-metal musicians of Scandinavia. The ‘wisdom’ duly inherited, it finally occurred to the surviving band some hours later that the suicide would probably have to be reported to the police. Mayhem were held and interrogated for some time, their supposed Satanic practices soon placing them among Norway’s most (or least) wanted. And Dead’s death was not the end of the story – as Euronymous was to discover
(
August 1993
) …

Thursday 1

8 Martin Hannett

(Manchester, 31 May 1948)

Having originally studied as a chemist, Martin ‘Zero’ Hannett played bass himself – with future Sad Café singer Paul Young – before turning his attention to co-founding Factory Records and producing the sound of Manchester sons The Buzzcocks during the early punk years – also working with Magazine, OMD, The Psychedelic Furs and U2 (his Rabid imprint was also the first to issue Jilted John’s eponymous 1978 single). Hannett is, however, probably most recalled for his work in sculpting the timeless sound of Joy Division’s two albums, his extraordinary techniques proving innovative to much that followed throughout the eighties. After the death of singer Ian Curtis (
May 1980),
he turned his attention to surviving members, renamed New Order, kickstarting a new sound that brought them global success. Hannett had been friends with the group (and the broader Factory family, until litigation against owner Tony Wilson in 1982), unafraid to party hard and well known for his massive drink and drug intake.

Martin Hannett’s death from a heart attack was unsurprising: he had ballooned to 26 stone (364 lbs) before his death. His coffin was initially unable to fit into his grave.

See also
Rob Gretton (
May 1999); Paul Young (
July 2000); Tony Wilson (
August 2007). Hannett’s biographer, former Durutti Column singer Colin Sharp, died in 2009.