2 posts tagged “rip”

It's been widely reported that Michael Jackson died today, originally from TMZ. As soon as the story of Michael arriving at the hospital in Los Angeles as a result of a cardiac arrest, the gossip website updated the story in a matter of minutes. It's amazing how breaking news spread across twitter, wikipedia and online newspaper.

When I first heard of the news, I actually did not believe it... but I suppose it's the truth.

I grew up in the ghetto in Sacramento, and we were pretty poor. Our color television was probably the most valuable thing we'd own. I don't know how it came into our possessing (probably a find at the Goodwill), but we had this one-hour NBC documentary via VHS on The Jackson Five. At the end of the documentary, it shifted focus on Michael Jackson.

It was brilliant, they showed his performance at the Apollo Theater, unveiling his "Moon Walk".

By 1987, I bought one of my first album, Michael Jackson's Bad on bootleg cassette at the local flea market. Hey, did I mention I was poor ? I played the crap out of that thing, I loved "Man in the Mirror".

I actually didn't end up buying the best-selling album of all time, Thriller, until the mid-90s. I lost it/lend it to someone, but it's okay because I recently re-purchased the album when the 25^th anniversary edition came out in 2007. I'm happy to report that the new version contain a DVD of the "Billie Jean" performance with that Moon Walk!
Sadly, the king of pop is dead, long live the king.

Sorry for all the music-related news, but thanks to Andrew (who reviewed Jeff Hanson's Madam Owl last year) for passing this along.

According to Star Tribune, local musician, Jeff Hanson, was found dead yesterday:

Jeff Hanson's rising career came to a sudden end Friday, when he was found dead at his apartment in St. Paul.

Hanson, 31, likely died from a fall or other accident at the concrete-floored apartment, which he had just moved into days earlier, said his sister, Sara Hanson. He was found by his parents.

My own experience with Jeff Hanson, was the first time I put on Madam Owl and thought the angelic voice coming out of my car stereo was that it was a woman. I thought to myself, 'oh, it must be a guest vocalist'. Then when the same woman appeared on the song after, I thought 'maybe they printed the wrong label on this CD'.

I had no idea that it was indeed the voice of male singer Jeff Hanson. That is pretty amazing, I had to see him singing for myself last year at the Triple Rock.

I think the very same thing happened to his record label, Kill Rock Star. The record people from Washington loved his voice so much, they flew him to play and sign when the label in 2005.

Other musicians recently found dead includes Koko "Queen of the Blues" Taylor and Wilco's Jay Bennett.