Hot Snakes “Suicide Invoice”

12″ LP, Swami, 2002

Rick Froberg died a few days ago. He was a few years older than me. Two of his bands have provided my life with a soundtrack for many, many years. This one Hot Snakes record alone more than ably served its duty in that regard. I don’t even really know what else to say, other than that Mr. Froberg was also a favorite vocalist, and provider of evocative album art.

This elpee – mine plays poorly due to negligence – has a lot of songs about death & dying. I’m including one of them here in tribute. Thank you, Rick Froberg.

the Karl Hendricks Trio “Baseball Cards” b/w “Smartypants”

45 rpm 7″, Mind Cure/Peas Kör, 1992

When Karl Hendricks died in early 2017, I initially was surprised that he was only a couple years older than me. After thinking about it, though, that we were contemporaries helped explain why I related to his output. Here was another songwriting, guitar-playing, music-obsessed, educated fellow with a literary bent – and from a Rust Belt city to boot. (He was obviously much better at presenting his abilities to the larger world than I ever was.) These two songs show him still polishing the formula … although “polishing” is a debatable term for the oft-ramshackle doings of the Trio.