(Destroy All Monsters, 2009)
Sure, he was the guy who made the creepy-cute piece on the cover of Dirty. But, Mike Kelley, who took his own life yesterday at his home is Pasadena, was also an influential musician, having formed the protopunk band Destroy All Monsters in Detroit in 1973 with Jim Shaw and friends from The Stooges and MC5. I wasn't overly impressed when I saw them during Kelley's A Fantastic World Superimposed on Reality festival during Performa in 2009 – I called them "the musical equivalent of a fart joke" - but I still couldn't take my eyes off of them. Times obit here.
And while I'm at it, what's up with all of these dudes offing themselves? As the fortune cookie I got today said: "There are no bad days. Some days are just better than others." Maybe it's an L.A. thing?