In Memorium.

I read somewhere that more people die on or around Christmas than any other day of the year. Whether or not this is true, I do not know. But, I do know two very important historical figures died this year on or around Christmas, but more important, to me at least, a great musician (that's not James Brown) died only a few weeks prior to Christmas. His name was Logan Whitehurst, he was 29, and he died due to complications from brain cancer. You've probably never heard of Logan, and if you have it is probably because of his amazing work as the drummer for The Velvet Teen. However, he was much more than a drummer, his solo albums were amazing, and his last one was released the day after Christmas. It is titled Very Tiny Songs, and contains 81 tracks. If you listen to Dr. Demento, you've probably heard some of his work.

I met him once. I think it was September or October of 2003, and his band, The Velvet Teen, had just played at The Middle East, in Cambridge Mass. He was a really nice guy. The other two band members were all dark and moody, but Logan was as bright as a spring morning. I've never spoken to a musician that was more enthused to talk to his fans. I told him how I totaled my car because of him. I was driving up to the Tweeter Center in Mansfield Ma, to see Radiohead, and listening to his album while doing so. It had rained earlier and we were in stop and go traffic, but I was so into his song Robot Cat (while writing this blog entry I had my iTunes on shuffle, and out of some 5,000 songs, this one came on when I was about to post), that I failed to notice the person in front of me had stopped, and my car slid right under hers. He found the story to be rather amusing, and in jest he offered me compensation.

It wasn't long after that performance that he had to leave the band. He came down with a mysterious illness, and was barely able to finish recording the album Elysium. The album turned out to be epic in every way, it was, without a doubt, the best album of 2004. I have never heard anything like this album either before or after. Unfortunately, he was not able to tour for the album, and they brought in some hack to replace him. It was his cancer that stopped him. He didn't stop being a musician though. After he felt as if he had his cancer under control he went to work on the above mentioned Very Tiny Songs album. I wrote Logan an e-mail this past autumn. He had posted on his MySpace blog that he had beaten cancer, and then it had come back, and then he had beaten it again (or at least that's how I interpreted it, it can be hard to understand what Logan writes), but in late August his doctor told him he would die within the year. I had hoped to hear from him before this happened, but it never happened. I told him how much I loved his music, and that he was a really nice guy the one time we met. I told him how much I was looking forward to his next album. I don't hold it against him that he never got back to me, he was dying from cancer and probably had more important things to do, I know I would.

On December 3rd of this year, 2006, Logan Whitehurst died from brain cancer. He will be missed.


Logan & Vanilla the Plastic Snowman!!

Here is an excellent essay Logan wrote on how to be cool. How to be Cool.