Rest in Peace, Tom Petty

In the shadow of one of the worst shootings in American history, in between the news network full coverage, and the madness that follows such things, we have lost one of our great musical lights. Tom Petty was found unconscious yesterday morning, and finally, after much heartache and misinformation, pronounced dead of cardiac arrest at the age of 66, early last night.

The first time I saw or heard Tom Petty, or Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, was in the movie FM, friends had referred to him as the new Mick Jagger. I don't know how accurate that is or was, but it was memorable. His music was the sound of my teens, my twenties, and so on, it truly mapped the 1970s, the 1980s, and 1990s for me. Hard Promises was one of three albums I bought with my very first paycheck. The great thing about Petty albums consistently is that you not only got the hits like "A Woman in Love (It's Not Me)" and "The Waiting," you also got AOR tunes and hidden gems like "A Thing About You," "Kings Road," and "The Criminal Kind." Yeah, I wore those grooves out.

I can remember having two, not just one, cassettes of Tom Petty's songs recorded from the radio when I first got a cassette recorder. He was an FM rock favorite and almost all of his music got airplay. Even before I graduated high school in 1982 (and Petty was white suburban FM rock and roll then) he had a catalog that included some of the best of the time, from "American Girl" and "Breakdown" to "Listen to Her Heart" and "I Need to Know." He was not a favorite, like Bowie or Prince, but man, he was always there, and always rocking. Yeah, he was a favorite, I just didn't know it.

Later favorite albums would include Long After Dark, which holds a special place in my heart for getting me my first date with a college girlfriend. She was a Petty fan, and my inside knowledge of when the album was coming out (easily found in Billboard magazine which I read obsessively when I worked at the college radio station) dazzled her enough to date me. This album also included Petty's move into the MTV era from that of FM AOR. I remember loving the post-apocalyptic music video for "You Got Lucky," the red vinyl single for "Change of Heart," and my favorite tune off the album, the B-side "Between Two Worlds."

My favorite Petty song comes from the next album Southern Accents, an album full of oddities mixed into the usual southern rock and roll highlights. This one had the hilarious country ditty "Spike" about a punk rocker, as well as the hit single with acid trip video, "Don't Come Around Here No More," coolly co-written by genius co-producer Dave Stewart from Eurythmics. But it was the weird dance vibe of "It Ain't Nothin' to Me," also with Stewart, that still blows me away. I don't know why, but I love this song even today and turn it up whenever I hear it.

Later Tom Petty, already a superstar in his own right, would officially go solo from the Heartbreakers, and also join with Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Roy Obrbison, and George Harrison to form the supergroup the Traveling Wilburys. Petty, with and without the Heartbreakers, would continue to release albums and singles through to 2014. He was always producing and always innovating. We have lost another legend, a man who filled my life with music, creating a soundtrack of memories. We will all miss Tom Petty. Rest in peace, man.

Kansas: Miracles Out of Nowhere

Kansas: Miracles Out of Nowhere ~ I stumbled across this documentary the other night on one of the MTV channels, and it brought back some great memories.  The doc tells the story of the band Kansas from its beginnings to their commercial success through individual interviews with the original six members. 

I remember hearing Kansas on the FM AOR radio, mostly WMMR and WYSP in the mid-seventies, and thinking they were okay.  I wouldn't change the station if they were on, basically, but I didn't really appreciate their music or their artistry until I heard them played in a neighbor's basement that had a killer stereo system.  That brought Kansas to life for me. 

I also remember a trip to the Ocean City boardwalk and a busker who refused to play "Dust in the Wind" because it was 'the hardest song ever to play properly,' and he 'didn't want his fingers to bleed.'  He got booed by both those who requested it and wanted to hear it.  True or not, it gave me added awe for the tune. 

My favorite Kansas song was "People of the South Wind" from the album Monolith, a song and an album both considered failures, but its content pulled at me.  Native Americans shoved aside by the white man, and wearing space helmets on the cover of the album drew me just like the fantastical elements of the cover of Point of Know Return.  It's still one of my favorite songs from that time. 

The doc is compelling, and tells stories of their early days, composition of songs, dealing with Don Kirshner, fighting with Steven Tyler, and the internal struggles of the band.  This is one of the better rock docs I've seen, cool for Kansas fans old, new, or fans not at all.  Check it out.

Lost Hits of the New Wave #41

"Blue Highway" by Billy Idol

There was a time in the mid-1980s when Billy Idol, despite his look and punk origins with Generation X (yeah, remember when it was a band and not a demographic?), was considered pop music and played to death on the radio and MTV.

Yeah, I loved "Rebel Yell" the first ten times I heard it, but man, the next thousand were downright painful. This song, "Blue Highway," got some minor play on radio and in the clubs, and was a nice change of pace. It still had the strong vocals of Billy and the screeching cool guitar of Steve Stevens, the vibe of "Rebel Yell," all without the overplay souring. It's almost like a new song.



"Blue Highway" has since become, and deservedly so, a staple on 1st Wave Classic Alternative Satellite Radio. And for the record, the above is not the real video, as the song had no video. The clips are from Billy's later album, Cyberpunk, also highly recommended.

Hardware

Someone recently recommended Lost Soul to me, the recent documentary about writer/director Richard Stanley and his journey making 1996's The Island of Doctor Moreau. Before I watched it I thought I might revisit Stanley's first mainstream film, Hardware from 1990.

I remember being very into cyberpunk when Hardware came out, seeing it the Friday night it was released, and liking it enough to buy the VHS when it became available - but if I'm being honest, I remember almost nothing else. It was one of those videotapes I owned, put on the shelf, and never watched. Yes, it's time to watch Hardware, but on Netflix, the VHS is long long gone now.

Hardware portrays a post-apocalyptic world some time in the 21st century with nations at war and radiation everywhere. The technology is dated, yet somehow refreshing, even if the fashions are very 1980s MTV doomsday. Written and directed by Stanley, and based on a short story from 2000 A.D., is the story of a sculptor who inadvertently reactivates a killer robot from collected junk, which then rampages.

This is both something we've seen before and yet haven't. Stanley adds a punk attitude and style to old school scifi and horror, then turns the dials up to eleven. Hardware is sexy, dirty, and slick, fastpaced to a eclectic score and soundtrack. I found I still dig this after twenty-five years, and had to scratch my head about why I hadn't seen either of Stanley's other two films, Moreau and Dust Devil.

Stacey Travis, John Lynch, and pre-"Practice" Dylan McDermott are very good and better than the usual for this kind of genre flick, but the movie is quite easily stolen by Motorhead's Lemmy, and Iggy Pop as DJ Angry Bob. Hardware was a pleasant ride through cyberpunk nostalgia, recommended, but not for the squeamish.

Lost Hits of the New Wave #37

"Stand or Fall" by The Fixx

One of my first memories of MTV was this video. I never saw the music video channel until about a year or so after it had first hit the air, and was in college at a friend's house, who not only had a Nintendo Entertainment System with the amazing for the time Donkey Kong home video game, but also cable with a projection TV in the basement.

"Stand or Fall" by The Fixx was the video that was on when I first came down into that basement, and as I recall, I saw it again later that afternoon as well. It wasn't a matter of it being popular at the moment, it was that the channel didn't have all that many videos yet. This was also around the time that Michael Jackson was making a stink about no videos by black artists on the channel, and something called "Billie Jean" was also starting to get airplay. I saw that one that afternoon as well.



Around this time however, The Fixx was very hot, follow up singles "Red Skies" from Shuttered Room, and from the next album Reach the Beach, there was "Saved by Zero" and "One Thing Leads to Another." Their videos were played on MTV in heavy rotation and for the non-cable users, "Video Rock," ad nauseum.



Led by Cy Curnin, lead singer and primary songwriter who has a solo career as well as participation in other musical projects, The Fixx continues to perform and record today.

Lost Hits of the New Wave #35

"Twilight Zone" by Golden Earring

One of the reasons I started this Lost Hits of the New Wave series on my blog was to rail against the concept of the one-hit wonder, because they rarely are. For instance, neither "Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats nor "Take on Me" by a-ha are one-hit wonders, much to the horror of many a VH-1 special. But Golden Earring is that rare but elusive true two-hit wonder.

Golden Earring's first hit, an FM radio staple in the 1970s, "Radar Love," in the days before the internet, was also the subject of many misheard lyrics discussions. How can it be 'radar love'? What the hell does that mean? Surely they must mean 'red hot love,' at least that makes sense. The haunting song, as much about driving as about telepathy, with the mysterious lyrics was released in 1973.

The Dutch band had been around since 1961, first known as the Golden Earrings, and are still active today, having scored dozens of hits in their homeland of The Netherlands in their long and distinguished career. They had to wait more than a decade for their second international hit however after "Radar Love."



From the 1982 album Cut featuring the iconic image of a playing card being shredded by a bullet, Golden Earring released the single "Twilight Zone." Fledgling music video network MTV picked it up almost immediately, although showing an edited version of the video, sans nudity.



While the obvious assumption is that the song is about the Rod Serling 1960s TV series of the same name, it's not. Sure, the pop culture reference is there, but listen to the lyrics, it's about something else. The song is about Robert Ludlum's novel "The Bourne Identity" that decades later became a successful movie franchise.


Rated R version

In their day Golden Earring toured the States often, notorious for their sometimes half-hour jam cover of "Eight Miles High" and the drummer catapulting into the audience at the climax of solos. Notably they were so big at one time that both KISS and Aerosmith opened for them during tours. After a Great Adventure concert ended in a fire tragedy in 1984 however, the band tended to stay away from the States and stick to smaller venues.

Houdini on History

The big new television event this last Labor Day weekend was the two-part Houdini mini-series on The History Channel. I love Houdini. I love movies and documentaries and books about Houdini. I even love the surviving fragments of his movie serials. The man was awesome. This mini-series was... a great illusion.

Adrien Brody is in the title role and it's one that fits him well. Not only does he look like Harry Houdini both facially and in body type, he has that mysterious air about him. Despite his miscasting in Peter Jackson's King Kong, he's perfect here. Kristen Connolly is pretty fair in the role of Bess, and even though it's a cameo, it is always good to see Barry from "EastEnders."

The soundtrack, a lively rocking score by John Debney, is one of the best I've heard in some time. I'm looking forward to finding it somewhere soon. This score fits the quick cut flashy MTV way this was filmed. It's not a complaint, but a compliment. Stylistically this is an amazing piece of work, style it has, it's the other areas where it lacks.

The mini-series takes us from the magician's childhood to Harry and Bess Houdini's days on the road before he became famous to his death on stage in 1926. There is both truth and fiction here as with all Houdini stories. This version even takes into account Houdini's supposed service to the US government as a spy. And then there's a lot more iffy stuff here for a program that aired on The History Channel.

History's Houdini was keen on showing us how many stunts and tricks were done, but what it wasn't good at was telling the truth. The facts elude the movie event like the real Houdini escaping chains and cages. The Wild About Harry website had a lot to say about how far from the truth this mini-series strayed, and it's not pretty.

Now the 1960s Tony Curtis film and the 1970s Paul Michael Glaser telemovie weren't that great on the facts either, and I loved them. And I admit to liking this one as well, but in its four hours it lacks the heart the other two had in half the time. Recommended for those who aren't depending on facts or looking for more than a story that barely touches the surface.

The Eye of the Tiger

Jimi Jamison, the lead singer of Survivor, a mainstay of the eighties pop/rock scene, died yesterday of a heart attack at the age of 64.

While many who weren't there, listening to the radio or watching MTV, might believe Survivor was a one-hit wonder with their biggest hit, "Eye of the Tiger," the song of the summer of 1982 and the musical vibe of Rocky III, that just wouldn't be true. Several hits from Survivor came and went, unfortunately now unremembered, in the 1980s, like "High on You," "Burning Heart" (from Rocky IV), "I Can't Hold Back," "American Heartbeat," and "The Search Is Over."

After breaking up at the end of the decade, the band reunited four years later and continued on for quite some time. Jamison left the band, was replaced, and then returned later that same year of 2012. Survivor continues from then on with two lead singers.

Jimi was also the lead singer of Cobra before joining Survivor, and was also noted for writing the theme song of "Baywatch."

Sharknado 2

You knew it was coming, how could it not be coming? From the moment Sharknado ended, we all knew that Sharknado 2: The Second One was coming. What the real trick is is how SyFy was able to muster the same if not bigger flurry of hype as the original. Forget the live "Sound of Music" with Carrie Underwood, this is real event television.

It still has the same plot, a tornado made of sharks, only this time it hits New York City. Ian Ziering is our almost indestructible action hero versus an army of wind propelled sharks. It's madness as only The Asylum can deliver. From the opening that rifts on Airplane! (with Robert Hays!) and "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" the guest stars come fast and furious. It's almost as much fun figuring out who's who as it is to watch this campy cool classic.

Everybody wants to be in the Sharknado sequel, from Judd Hirsch and Kelly Osborne to the looking their age Mark McGrath and Downtown Julie Brown. There's Andy Dick, Wil Wheaton, the crew of "The Today Show," Biz Markie, Perez Hilton, and even the Naked Cowboy. The entire movie is like the window gag on "Batman" '66, who's going to show up next? Jared from Subway is also in there, probably because there's Subway advertising everywhere.

There's also Vivica A. Fox, who seems to be standing in for the one-handed and ragged Tara Reid who just doesn't seem up to the sequel. Speaking of folks not aging well and unrecognizable, Kari Wuhrer, Robert Klein, and Billy Ray Cyrus are also in here. There are also multiple references to other movies like 1941, Army of Darkness, and Cloverfield. Most of all, written by Thunder Levin who wrote the original, the flick never loses its sense of humor about itself.

SyFy has fun with it as well, promoting live Tweeting of the movie, keeping a running body count, and when they could have saturated this with commercials made breaks swift and painless. Sharknado 3 is planned for next year with SyFy thinking it will be a yearly event, as long as it doesn't jump the shark, that is. This is mindless fun, jump in!

Miley Gone Mad?

With an impending birthday coming this week, after watching the opening number of this year's MTV VMAs, I had to ask myself two questions. Or rather one question with a choice. Am I old, or has Miley Cyrus lost her mind?

I am concerned for her well being honestly. The woman is clearly out of control, if not under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or just plain stupidity. If she was a close friend, or a member of our families - you know damned straight she'd be long overdue for an intervention.



Yeah, and there it is. It's not like the VMAs don't have a reputation for controversy. I remember quite clearly as a young man seeing Madonna hump the floor in a bridal gown while singing "Like a Virgin." I will never forget that as long as I live. Later shows have tried to recreate or top that moment, but rarely succeeding. It may be time for MTV to stop trying to do that, and just do an awards show. The Oscars and the Tonys have both shown in recent years that 'just an awards show' can actually be quite good.

What bothers me most about the Miley Cyrus performance at the VMAs is that no one stopped it, no one pulled her aside and said No. Even Robin Thicke, especially co-conspirator Robin Thicke should have known better. Lady GaGa is outrageous. Madonna is outrageous. But poor Miley just made us feel embarrassed and worried for her.

Outrageous, unique, and controversial are something to aspire to in the entertainment industry, but this was just a freak show, and pitiful and shocking for most of us to watch. And I'm sure Will Smith and his family agrees with me.

Arrow: Betrayal

"Arrow" is at a point now where you need a score card to know what's what and who's who. I'm not sure that's a place this show should be at right now. I'm sure there's a core audience, but despite the handy elevator pitch origin story in the opening of every episode, I'm not sure that any new viewers wouldn't be hopelessly lost. No matter how you slice it, even I was having trouble keeping all the balls in the air at the beginning of "Betrayal."

Oliver confronts his mom about the notebook full of names that he got from Felicity last episode. She throws it in the fireplace, suggesting the only way the family can heal is to stop asking questions. Diggle tails her throughout the episode, discovering some nasty secrets. When Oliver confronts her later as Arrow, heh, well, that's this episode's cliffhanger.

In the main story this episode, Cyrus Vanch, former muckety-muck of the Starling City underworld has been released from prison, Iron Heights specifically - nice shout out to the comics. He wants what's his back, as well as the Triad's and the Bertinelli family's (I guess that means we haven't seen the last of China White or the Huntress). And he also wants Arrow out of the way. Using his contacts on the police force, he learns Laurel knows Arrow, so he kidnaps her. This forces Dad to cooperate with The Hood.

In the attack on Vanch, I am again struck by the violence of this so-called hero's methods. By my count, there are at least eight of Vanch's men who take arrows right in the chest. Can you live through that? It's what bothered me about previews of the show before it aired. Have they made Green Arrow into a serial killer? Man, give me an old-fashioned boxing glove arrow any day.

In the soap opera portion of the show, honesty gets between Laurel and Tommy. Disappointingly this coupling has yet to be used to its potential as far as being a plot complication. So much unused potential, but I'll keep waiting. Laurel's relationship with her dad is suffering from problems similar to hers with Tommy as well this episode. I wonder what's next on "All My Arrows"...

On the island, Oliver meets Slade Wilson, played by Manu Bennett, Crixus of Starz' amazing "Spartacus" series. Comics readers will immediately recognize the name Slade Wilson as the not so secret identity of Deathstroke. Again, for TV they have flipped things. Wilson is apparently one of two Deathstrokes, and not the one Oliver encountered earlier. Apparently Slade is who trains Oliver. I won that bet.

There are other cool shout outs this episode as well. Vanch's lawyer worked for Wolfman and Perez, referencing the writer/artist team of Marv Wolfman and George Perez, who created the New Teen Titans, a team that occasionally featured Speedy. They also, most notably, created Deathstroke. Laurel wants to call DA Kate Spencer for help to put Vanch back in prison. Kate is of course the civilian identity of Manhunter. Arrow and Laurel meet atop the Winick building - Judd Winick, former MTV "Real World" wrote the Green Arrow comic for a while.

Be here next episode when Oliver tells his mom that she's failed the city, same Arrow time, same Arrow channel.

David Bowie - "Where Are We Now?"

Earlier this week, on David Bowie's birthday, he released the first single and music video from his new album. We all thought he had retired, so yes, it was quite a shock, and a delight.

David Bowie is a rock god. That is completely undisputed. I also love him. He is one of my favorite artists. I was thrilled to hear this news and downloaded the song, unheard, immediately when I found out about it. Take my money, iTunes, I don't even have to hear it. That's how I feel about Bowie.

Here's the music video for "Where Are We Now?"

Wow. What is most stunning about the video is that after over forty years in the music video business (that's right, kids, Bowie's been doing it longer than MTV has), he can still amaze, and mesmerize, and innovate. The video accompanies a song that is slow and drifting at first but builds at the end, almost like the work of Kate Bush. The more I listen to it, the more I like it.

I can't wait for the new album. David Bowie's The Next Day is scheduled for a March 12, 2013 release.

Lost Hits of the New Wave #16

"Love Is a Battlefield" by Pat Benatar

Another example of an established rock act getting on the new wave bandwagon, this example may well have had good intentions but went above and beyond them. While the previous studio album by Pat Benatar, Get Nervous was far more new wavey than this song, it didn't do as well as it was intended to do, and the singles released did not sample that flavor.

"Love Is a Battlefield" was the first single from Benatar's live greatest hits collection, Live from Earth. Written by Holly Knight and Mike Chapman, the drum and synth heavy tune was accompanied by a music video that featured Benatar as a runaway/taxi dancer who leads a rebellion against her pimp and walks off into the sunset victorious. The fashion, the dancing, and the story got the video honored with multiple awards, and earned Benatar her biggest US hit.

Lost Hits of the New Wave #14

"Can't Stand Losing You" by The Police



Back in the days before MTV, or before everyone except me had cable television and MTV, I would seek out every possible avenue to see music videos. Long about 1980, 1981, those avenues were few.

There was a program called "Rockworld" that aired on the pre-Fox channel 29, on the UHF dial for all the old folks reading, and that was one outlet for pre-MTV music videos. It was an hour long and would feature one or two artists or bands per episode, and there really weren't that many episodes, and they repeated them often. This was where I saw many of the early videos by Adam and the Ants, DEVO, Van Halen, the Pretenders, and The Police.

The Police videos all looked they had been filmed on the same day, and quite possibly with a single budget. Besides "Can't Stand Losing You," one of my all-time favorites, there was also "Walking on the Moon," "Message in a Bottle," and of course, "Roxanne."

The Forgotten Spider-Man

Everyone knows the 1967 "Spider-Man" cartoon, you know, the one with the catchy theme song. Most folks know the 1990s series on Fox as well. The fanboys and girls among us know the MTV CGI animated series, the spacey cosmic "Unlimited", and "Amazing Friends" with Iceman and Firestar. But does anyone remember the 1981 Saturday morning cartoon?

The 1981 "Spider-Man" did not air in the Philadelphia area so I didn't see it until years later in syndication. It was the wall-crawler first animated appearance on TV since the classic 1967 series. It was Spidey once more on Saturday mornings, and a prelude to "Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends." Many of the queues were taken from the sixties cartoon, maybe not actual model sheets and drawings, but they sure tried to copy it, from shots of buildings to angles that Spidey would swing by on his weblines.

The villains were there. Spidey fought the Green Goblin, the Vulture, the Sandman, the Lizard, Mysterio, and the Kingpin. Others who had not yet seen animation as Spider-foes like the Chameleon, Black Cat, Silvermane, Hammerhead, and Kraven the Hunter. New villains were added like the Gadeteer, the Stuntman, and in a hollaback to the '67 'toon, the Desperado-like Sidewinder.

Attempts to expand the animated Marvel Universe were made as Spider-Man also went up against Magneto, the Red Skull, and the Ringmaster. The oddest addition of this type was the seeming ascension of Doctor Doom to archenemy status for Spider-Man. The two clash in six out of the twenty-six episodes. Many Marvel super-heroes show up as guest-stars as well, including Captain America, the Sub-Mariner, Ka-Zar, Medusa and even Namorita.

There were problems however. This DePatie-Freleng production had the same quality as the last two Marvel animations, "Spider-Woman" and "New Fantastic Four," the latter was the infamous version with H.E.R.B.I.E. the Robot. The animation is very slow-paced, Spidey's webs eject with almost molasses flow sometimes. And of course this was a time in network television when violence was considered to be rotting the minds of young children - so Spider-Man could neither make a fist nor throw a punch, even at someone as evil as a Nazi madman like the Red Skull.



The 1981 "Spider-Man" cartoon has its moments, and it's closer to comics continuity than a lot of superhero animation out there. It's worth a viewing or two for the hardcore fans, and is now available from Netflix via DVD or streaming online.

Don Kirshner 1934-2011

One of America's greatest music producers, and a driving force in popular music for decades, Don Kirshner, passed away yesterday from heart failure in Boca Raton, Florida. He was 76.

I think it's sad that there are probably generations who don't even know his name, or if they do, it's because of late night infomercials, or they think he's a character Paul Shaeffer played on "Saturday Night Live." Of course they are other generations, before the advent of MTV, who know the man and his contributions.

Kirshner was instrumental in starting the careers of numerous songwriters in the 1960s with his "Brill Building" school, where friend and producer Phil Specter also worked. 'Graduates' included Carole King, Neil Sedaka, Neil Diamond, Howard Greenfield, and Gerry Goffin. Together they scored dozens and dozens of hits, before they went on to have careers of their own, while Kirshner himself started several record labels and moved on into television. Known as "The Man with the Golden Ear," he was one of the folks who created the Monkees, as well as the cartoon Archies, both groups prefabricated, and he also discovered many 'real' music acts as well like Bobby Darin and Kansas.

Kirshner was also a 1970s fixture on Sunday late nights with his legendary "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert." There he introduced many acts to America for the first time like Prince, Blue Oyster Cult, Earth Wind and Fire, Parliament Funkadelic, the Sex Pistols, Alice Cooper, Rush, Linda Ronstadt, KISS, Ted Nugent, David Bowie, and the Ramones, just to name a few of the hundreds who appeared on the program. The series, which ran from 1973-1981, was notable for being live and not allowing acts to lipsync, a widespread curse of the 1970s. We didn't have MTV, we had Don.

We have lost one of the true geniuses of the music industry, he will be missed.

Lost Hits of the New Wave #4

"Hello Again" by The Cars.

The Cars were at the start of the New Wave but this entry, the fourth single from "Heartbeat City," comes from late in 1984, well after the MTV video revolution. In fact, at this time, Ric Ocasek and The Cars were at the forefront of the music video world and recruited the legendary Andy Warhol to direct this one. He appears throughout, and also look for a very young Gina Gershon.

The song, my favorite from the album which is full of great tunes, both wildly popular and largely unknown, seems to me to be about The Wizard of Oz, but the video seems to focus on the dangers of gratuitous sex and violence in music videos. Somehow that seems too appropriate.

Harry Potter Preview

Avenged Sevenfold Drummer Dead

Praised by some as one of the world's best drummers, Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan of Avenged Sevenfold was found dead in his home yesterday. No cause of death has been revealed as yet.

Ken Ober Dead at 52

Ken Ober, best known as the host of MTV's game-changing gameshow "Remote Control," has died at the age of 52. The show also featured early work by Adam Sandler, Kari Wuhrer, Denis Leary and Colin Quinn, as well as bringing the wonders of "Gilligan's Island" and "The Brady Bunch" to a whole new generation. In recent years Ober had produced television series like "Mind of Mencia" and "The New Adventurers of Old Christine."