ELO Bassist Kelly Groucutt Dies

As a big ELO fan, I'm sad to report that ELO bassist and excellent backup vocalist Kelly Groucutt has died via a heart attack. He was 63.

While Groucutt left ELO in 1983 and had a major falling out with band mastermind Jeff Lynne -- he was not invited back to Lynne's brief 2001 reactivation of ELO -- it was Groucutt's harmonies with Lynne that really helped define the ELO sound. Give a listen to all the albums on which Groucutt sang -- starting with 1975's Face the Music, his first with the band, and up to his last, 1981's Time -- and then listen to all the records ELO made without him. He had a pitch perfect sound that meshed amazingly well with Lynne's rich voice, and gave birth to ELO's great high-pitch harmonies. That influence can be heard today in bands everywhere, from The Apples in Stereo to Grandaddy to Supper Furry Animals.

Anyway, he was a great singer and a good bassist (and had an awesome fro!). Check out "Shine a Little Love" in the video below, which features a great bassline and harmonies from Groucutt.

Totally Bodacious Confidence-Building Playlist

Hey there, shrimp. Tired of getting sand kicked in your face? Tired of ordering those get-big-now products in the back of comic books? Tired of the bully from the beach stealing your mail and using the get-big-now products you ordered only to get bigger and kick more sand in your face on the beach? Well spit out those tiny rock babies (sand). You men and women can empower yourselves cheaply and safely from the confines of your loneliest computer room. All you need is, get this, a thing that plays music, and a way to get music that is recommended to you. I suggest any way that is legal and in some way rewards artisans for their innovative and selfless efforts. Unless that artisan is Kanye West. If that's the case, plunder and pillage like a pirate viking straight outta space-jail.

Here are 10 confidence-building songs perfect to listen to right before:

- entering a job interview
- asking Betty or Lindsay to the Friday's Place dance
- standing before a judge

So get the 'rone (body-builder-types like us call it testosterone) and enjoy a 10 song playlist of music that is sure to make you stupidly punch your computer screen in a fit of confident rage.

1) Motorhead - Ace of Spades - Holy Hell. Motorhead came into my life like one of the apostles coming to a sinful ignorant desert village. Except the apostle was actually the influential 1980s BBC comedy series The Young Ones (I was the village). The Young Ones was a surreal look into what a country of weirdos think is funny - basically bludgeoning each other with blunt objects for 30min or so. Regardless, this show was the closest thing to a variety show I ever watched (in fact, the show's producers claimed to the BBC it was actually a variety show because variety shows were given more money). Motorhead exploded on the screen and this song assaulted and brutally beat my morally pure ears like a musical chaingang. Pretty soon I was selling my comic books for glue and speed and whistling at the girls on the tire playground. Hearing this song now fills me with the same relentless can-do/fuck-shit-up/eat-that-thing attitude only a person with his whole life ahead of him can have... or a 10 year old geek who should be outside on a sunny day playing with other neighborhood kids instead of watching an obscure program from a country that is unfortunately NOT America.



2) Sick Of It All - Step Down - Okay, these NYC hardcore legends might not have the most radio-friendly tunes so don't expect your parish or deacon to dig the vocals of Lou Koller, and what the hell are you doing hanging with those dudes anyway- you should be out partying before this country gets sold. In the rare instance someone actually asks me for an opinion such as what old-school hardcore bands are worth a few ducats, I would probably start with this band, this song. It's more melodic than most of SOIA's catalog but there's still a good old fashioned "breakdown" in the middle that you can listen to on your iPod without getting kicked in the face by some guy named Angelo from Crown Heights (but probably has relatives in Staten Island). I saw these guys at a Warped Tour in '94 or '95 then promptly returned to the comforts of my suburban fortress never to venture out among city-folk again (or regular folk for that matter (I order my kleenex box shoes from creepyshut-in.com))