Local punk champion, Masque founder Brendan Mullen dies

Brendan Mullen, the founder of the Masque punk rock club in Hollywood that helped launch that vibrantly anarchic music scene on the West Coast in the late 1970s, died Monday after suffering a massive stroke two days earlier. He was 60.

Mullen died at Ventura County Medical Center, his companion of 16 years, Kateri Butler, said Monday. The couple had been traveling through Santa Barbara and Ventura celebrating his 60th birthday, which was Friday.  “The doctors are completely perplexed,” Butler said. “They can’t figure out why he had a stroke -- he had none of the indicators, his cholesterol was perfect. One of the neurologists summed it up best when he said, ‘Sometimes, your number is just up.’ ”

At the Masque, Mullen created an underground space that served as a crucible for the musicians and fans who felt alienated from mainstream society. Anger, frustration and self-deprecating humor flowered in the assaultive music that had been roiling in New York and London as L.A. bands including the Weirdos, the Germs, the Dils and the Screamers turned up regularly at the Masque for some of their earliest performances.

“He was the first promoter of punk rock in this town,” veteran promoter Paul Tollett of Goldenvoice Presents said Monday. “Everything started with him."

Appreciation: Ellie Greenwich: mover and shaper of American pop

The songwriter was a natural collaborator and captured moments of uncertainty in her 'little soap operas.'

Ellie Greenwich spent her Long Island adolescence on the corner of Starlight and Springtime lanes. "My birthday is October 23rd, on the cusp of Libra and Scorpio," she said in a 1990 interview with writer and musician Charlotte Greig. "My father was Catholic and my mother was Jewish. I was destined for something -- half and half, and on the cusp of everything."

Greenwich emerged as a songwriter when America itself was on the cusp of everything, a whole set of conventions unspooling under the power of rock 'n' roll, the civil rights movement and the incipient counterculture. Her American polyglot upbringing prepared Greenwich, who died today at age 68 of a heart attack, for what she became: one of the great sound alchemists who turned the ambiguities of youth into the essence of American pop.

Able to sing, arrange and produce as well as pen indelible hits, Greenwich found her artistic home within New York's Brill Building, where she, her husband and songwriting partner, Jeff Barry, and their peers transformed an art form without making a big deal of it. She was a natural collaborator who could match wits with control freaks like Phil Spector and totally relate to the kids in the groups who recorded her songs.

She could write silly and she could write serious. But Greenwich's key works -- such classics as "Leader of the Pack," "Chapel of Love" and "River Deep, Mountain High" as well as more obscure ones like "Out in the Streets" and "Girls Can Tell" -- have a particular resonance that goes beyond catchiness or nostalgia.

Their quality has to do with Greenwich's gift for capturing the frisson of a decision almost made, a change that hasn't quite come, and which could still go either way. The voices for which she wrote, young and nearly always female, had a natural waver. They belonged to the kids who would change everything: multicultural girls such as Barbara Alston and Dolores "La La" Brooks of the Crystals, Ronnie Spector of the Ronettes and Mary Weiss of the Shangri-Las, girls who aspired to certain feminine ideals but also wished for a certain freedom promised by the changing attitudes of their time.

Tracing the line from Les Paul to The Edge

Los Angeles Times contributor Steve Appleford attended a Friday night screening in Los Angeles of "It Might Get Loud," the new documentary that offers an intimate look at the relationship shared between a musician and the guitar, namely Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White. Director Davis Guggenheim, pictured, was on hand and reflected on the loss of guitar innovator Les Paul at the screening.

Here's an excerpt from his story, which will run int Monday's Calendar section:

As the 97-minute documentary rolled, Guggenheim gathered with producer Lesley Chilcott, editor Greg Finton and other members of his crew to celebrate the opening at an adjacent bar. The director drew a line from Paul to the restless guitarists in his film, noting that the Edge built a guitar from scratch as a teenager with his brother, and White is seen constructing a primitive "Diddley Bow" in the opening scene from a plank of wood, a Coke bottle and a single string.

"Les Paul was constantly taking things apart and making things better, finding a tool for him to express himself," Guggenheim said. "They each take this thing and modify it for themselves to say what they want it to say."

"Words are their second language," he added with a grin. "Their first language was this piece of wood, the strings and electricity."

Of the many hours of footage left out of the film was a scene in which Page spoke of hearing the guitar on Paul and Mary Ford's "How High the Moon" for the first time. "It blew his mind and he wondered how he did it," Guggenheim said.

After the film ended Friday, the filmmakers took questions from the audience. One of the first was about how the three guitarists were chosen.

Producer Chilcott, who also worked with Guggenheim on the Oscar-winning "An Inconvenient Truth," noted that Page was the first to sign on. She also smiled and admitted, "My mother didn't talk to me for a couple of months because of some of the people we left out of the movie."

"Namely?" asked Guggenheim.

"Namely, Les Paul," she answered with a nod.

Read Appleford's full story here.

--Todd Martens

Photo credit: Getty Images

Remembering guitar innovator Les Paul

Coverage from the Los Angeles Times on the passing of Les Paul. 

- Les Paul dies at 94; guitarist whose innovations paved the way for rock 'n' roll. The virtuoso picker influenced a generation of guitarists and had a series of hits in the '50s with wife Mary Ford. He invented an early solid-body electric guitar and pioneered new recording methods

Les Paul was often called rock royalty, but for the people who knew the man before his death Thursday at age 94, that term often inspired a gentle chuckle.

Born in Wisconsin in 1915, Paul was a Midwestern jazz man who went on to make high-polish 1950s pop recordings, a style of music that was snuffed out by the reckless energy of rock 'n' roll. Still, the rock demi-gods of the 1960s and '70s adored Paul for what he handed them, the Gibson Les Paul electric guitar, a beast of an instrument that has endured through the years whether the band on stage was Led Zeppelin, the Sex Pistols or Green Day. The six-string became such an American institution that, like Levi Strauss, Jack Daniel's and John Deere, it became more a symbol than a mere brand name. Read more...

- Photos: Les Paul | 1915-2009. A 20-picture look at the life of Les Paul. 

- Photos: Les Paul: The master's disciples. Les Paul helped make the electric guitar sound clean, and in his experiments with multitrack recording, he also made it sound grand - the perfect tool for the guitar virtuosos who followed.A look at those influenced by the man and the guitar, from Chet Atkins to Green Day. Read more...

Photo credit: Chris Lentz / PBS

John Hughes: The soundtrack to a generation

A great teen movie needs a soundtrack. Youth is captured better in song than on film, and behind every brain, athlete, basket case, princess or a criminal is a score. John Hughes knew how to find it.

Teen angst doesn't belong to one generation more than any other. Isolation, awkwardness and a general distrust of authority are staples, whether kids are listening to the Beatles on vinyl, or Paramore on an iPhone.

But if the boomers had Woodstock, Generation X had John Hughes.

Details released on the passing of the Seeds' Sky Saxon

Sky Saxon, leader of Los Angeles 1960s garage-rock band the Seeds, died early Thursday morning in Austin, Texas. Born Richard Marsh, Saxon was hospitalized on Monday. His death was made public via a Facebook status update from his wife, Sabrina Saxon, and confirmed later in the day by his publicist. His exact age is unknown, but he is believed to be in his mid-‘60s.

Saxon’s wife has been keeping fans updated on Saxon’s status via various social networking sites. He was hospitalized earlier this week for an undetermined internal infection and was reported to be in critical condition. A statement released last night revealed that Saxon ultimately died of heart and kidney failure due to the infection.

Saxon had recently moved east to Austin, where he had continued to be an active musician. Saxon had performed just last Saturday at the Austin club Antone’s, where he appeared with local garage-rock band Shapes Have Fangs, and was planning to tour this summer with surviving members of Love and the Electric Prunes. The tour is expected to go on.

Michael Jackson: A life in pictures

As much as Michael Jackson revolutionized the sounds of popular music, his striking sense of style and ever-evolving identity equally informed culture. Here are two galleries showcasing his growth from soulful child prodigy to the King of Pop, and his irreplaceable mark on pop style.

Michael Jackson: A Life in Pictures

All the Rage: The fashions of Michael Jackson

-August Brown

Former Wilco member Jay Bennett dies*

Multi-instrumentalist and former member of Wilco Jay Bennett died this weekend, according to a post on the website for Undertow Music Collective. He was 45.

A cause of death was unknown. “We are profoundly saddened to report that our friend died in his sleep last night. Jay was a beautiful human being who will be missed,” read the update on Undertow. The company released his 2002 solo album, “Palace at 4 am (Part I).”

Representatives from the label and management firm had not responded to requests for comment as of Sunday evening, but the Chicago Sun-Times reached Bennett’s friend and collaborator Edward Burch. "Early this morning, Jay died in his sleep and an autopsy is being performed," Burch told Jim DeRogatis.

In the late ‘80s, Bennett founded the rock band Titanic Love Affair in Urbana, Ill., which lasted into the mid-‘90s. He was best known for his seven years in adventurous rock act Wilco. Bennett split from the Chicago-based group in 2001, and since his departure had been pursuing a solo career, as well as operating Pieholden Suite Sound – named after a song on Wilco’s 1999 album “Summerteeth” -- in Champaign , Ill. 

Bennett released the solo effort “Whatever Happened I Apologize” via the Web late last year, and reported at that time that he was pursuing "another" master’s degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Yet it was Bennett’s time in Wilco that won him the most acclaim.

He had a not-so-amicable split from the band in 2001, which was documented in the 2002 film “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” and Greg Kot’s book “Wilco: Learning How to Die.” He did, however, play a major role in the band as a writer, producer and musician. The orchestrated pop of “Summerteeth” further stripped Wilco of its country-rock roots, and 2002’s “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” saw the band move into more atmospheric territory.

Jenny Lens, Pleasant Gehman, Joseph Rees and more remember Lux Interior

The death of Cramps frontman Lux Interior prompted many punk luminaries to share their memories of his life and work. Henry Rollins weighed in last week, and here are a few more thoughts from musicians, writers, photographers and scene mavens who knew him or were shaped by his music.

Jenny Lens, L.A. punk photographer

The Cramps were unique and so far ahead of their time, most people still haven't caught on to them. They were theater of the highest caliber, just as much high art as low art, a tradition as old as mankind itself. Primitive, alien and yet a part of us, not apart from us. They affected me so much I couldn't take many live photos. Now that's saying something!

The Screamers and I headed to the Chateau Marmont after a Whisky show. I had a large, blue Chrysler New Yorker, which all the punks, including Dee Dee Ramone and later Sham 69, loved because I could fill it full with punks and drive all over town. I remember the party room being very crowded, so some of us headed towards the pool. Tomata du Plenty told me to take off all my clothes because a group of us were going to swim in the nude. I said they would throw us out, but I saw others strip down, and I joined in. I remember laughing and having so much fun until the angry management did throw us out.

Blossom Dearie dies at 82

Somewhat lost in the flurry of Grammy activity was the news that Blossom Dearie, the jazz-cabaret singer with a voice as sweet and precious as her name, died of natural causes in her Greenwich Village apartment Saturday.

With a breezy, gentle vocal style that echoed a little girl's innocence, Dearie's appeal as a vocalist lies beyond genre classifications. In fact, many Pop&Hiss readers may have unknowingly first become familiar with Dearie as the voice for a few "Schoolhouse Rock" cartoons in the 1970s, including the gorgeous "Figure Eight" and "Unpack Your Adjectives." (Watch a YouTube clip after the jump.)

Lend an ear to the rainy day-ready "Now at Last" from her self-titled debut backed by Ray Brown and Jo Jones, then have probably the most lovely experience  possible while brushing up on your multiplication tables. Thanks, Blossom.

Read The Times' obituary here.

-- Chris Barton