Sixteen people unaccounted for, and killed in the Tennessee explosion.. Blast was heard up to 15 miles away. RIP
ace frehley, kiss, 74. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj41vwgv47no https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_Frehley
My cousin who lived next door to Ken Houghton sent me a mail about his funeral, I thought I would share it on here. thought you would like to hear about Ken's funeral. It was a packed house as you can imagine. Lots of men in suits who I should imagine you would have recognised as ex footballers. A black white and amber football fashioned in flowers on his coffin. The celebrant was wonderful. A lifelong City fan, but far too young to have seen Ken play. Glyn, Ken's son spoke for about twenty minutes reflecting on memories of his Dad. I think he could have spoken for an hour and still held everyone's attention. Ken went into 'Three Steps to Heaven' apparently he had been singing that in Hospital. They played Barbara Steisand's 'Forevergreen' during the service and ended with 'My Way'. All in all a lovely service for someone who's life was well lived
Sam Rivers, the bassist and backing vocalist of the US nu-metal group Limp Bizkit, has died at the age of 48, the band has said. Limp Bizkit announced the death in a social media post, describing Rivers as the band’s “heartbeat”. “Today we lost our brother. Our bandmate. Our heartbeat,” the band wrote. “Sam Rivers wasn’t just our bass player – he was pure magic. The pulse beneath every song, the calm in the chaos, the soul in the sound.
Friend of mine attended and commented what a good turn out it was. He also mentioned how good the celebrant was who conducted the service wearing a City scarf and drank the tot of vodka that was on top of Ken's coffin. Someone mentioned that Ken joined City from Rotherham along with Ian Butler for £80k, which was £75k for Ken and £5k for Ian Butler, that brought a laugh. Waggy was there, Chris Simpkin and Mick Brown. Said it was a wonderful send off to a wonderful man. UTT.
RIP say hello and wave goodbye Dave Ball, who as one half of Soft Cell brought dark, cutting-edge synth-pop to the masses, has died aged 66. Representatives for the musician said he “passed away peacefully in his sleep at his London home on Wednesday”. No cause of death was given. His partner in Soft Cell, Marc Almond, paid tribute, writing: “He was a wonderfully brilliant musical genius … Thank you Dave for being an immense part of my life and for the music you gave me. I wouldn’t be where I am without you”. Born in Chester in 1959 to a single mother and named Paul, he was adopted and given the name David Ball, and raised in Blackpool alongside an adopted sister, Susan. The resort town rubbed off on Ball who cited its “showbizzy” side – “the funfairs and the craziness” – as an influence on his music career, as well as his father’s engineering background getting him interested in electronics. He cited hearing Kraftwerk’s Autobahn in 1975 as a “turning point” in his life. After his father died of cancer, he left Ball some money which he spent on a guitar, soon trading it in for a synthesiser. He moved to study art at Leeds Polytechnic – “I was just desperate to get away and start my own life”, he said – where the first person he met was Almond. “There was this one guy wandering around with a leopard-skin top, bleached hair and spandex trousers, and I thought, ‘he’s got to be in the art department, he’s not an accountant’, so I asked him, ‘do you know where I enrol?’”, Ball later remembered. please log in to view this image View image in fullscreen ‘We were a weird couple: Marc, this gay bloke in makeup; and me, a big guy who looked like a minder’ … Ball (background) and Almond in 2002. Photograph: Lex van Rossen/MAI/Redferns They formed the duo Soft Cell in 1978. The flamboyant frontman Almond was into pop-soul and 60s ballads, while the more reserved Ball had an interest in synths and “machine music”, as he called it. “We were a weird couple: Marc, this gay bloke in makeup; and me, a big guy who looked like a minder,” he told the Guardian in 2017, but this seeming disconnect resulted in a dynamic and striking kind of pop. Ball handed a copy of their debut EP to BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel who played it on his show, and the duo were signed to the label Some Bizzare. Their first singles A Man Could Get Lost and Memorabilia flopped, but their next was a sensation. Tainted Love was a cover of a song by American soul singer Gloria Jones, which had never had chart success but had become much-loved on the northern soul scene in the north of England; Almond has said he was influenced by another version, by English singer Ruth Swann. Soft Cell’s 1981 cover version went to No 1 in the UK, and became the second-biggest seller that year after the Human League’s Don’t You Want Me. It also reached No 1 in 16 other countries, and was a US Top 10 hit. The success took Soft Cell by surprise: “We were living in a dodgy little housing association flat in Leeds and being flown about on Concorde,” Ball said. Tainted Love was the first of five UK Top 10 hits in a row, namely Bedsitter; Say Hello, Wave Goodbye; Torch, and What. Their debut album Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret went platinum in the UK, despite containing substantially edgier fare than Tainted Love, its lyrics nodding to S&M, pornography and sexual frustration. The follow-up The Art of Falling Apart reached No 5, but the hard-partying duo amicably split in early 1984, and released an underperforming post-breakup album, This Last Night in Sodom. “We were taking too many dodgy substances and getting into weird nonsense,” said Ball, who had become a father in his early 20s but found drug addiction was “tearing me apart”. please log in to view this image View image in fullscreen ‘We were taking too many dodgy substances and getting into weird nonsense’ … Soft Cell in 1981. Photograph: Fin Costello/Redferns After Soft Cell, Ball toyed with short-lived groups Other People, Ornamental and English Boy on the Loveranch, and collaborated with Throbbing Gristle’s Genesis P-Orridge on soundtracks to the films Decoder and Imagining October (the latter directed by Derek Jarman). He then had a successful and sustained collaboration with musician Richard Norris, as the Grid, formed in 1988. The duo, supplanted by guest musicians, were born out of the acid house era and created pumping rave tracks touched with cosmic psychedelia. By 1993 they had reached the Top 30 in the UK with the singles Crystal Clear and Texas Cowboys. Their next track Swamp Thing – powered by a high-speed banjo line – became an international smash and reached No 3 in the UK charts. Norris also paid tribute, writing: “Being in a duo with someone is different from being in a band: the bond is very tight. That’s how it was with us … Thanks for the good times, the endless laughter, your unwavering friendship. Most of all, thank you for the music.” During the 1990s Ball also worked as a producer for other artists, including Kylie Minogue, working on tracks for her 1997 album Impossible Princess including the Top 20 single Breathe. please log in to view this image View image in fullscreen The duo performing at the O2 Arena, London, in 2018. Photograph: Jim Dyson/Getty Images Soft Cell reformed in 2000 for live dates, then released a new album Cruelty Without Beauty in 2002; another northern soul cover, of the Four Seasons’ The Night, took them back to the Top 40. Almond said in his tribute: “Whenever we came back together after long periods apart there was always that warmth and chemistry. There was a deep mutual respect that gave our combined songwriting its unique power.” After more than 15 years away, Soft Cell again returned to recording in 2018 with two new songs, and released another album in 2022, Happiness Not Included, which reached No 7 in the UK album chart. It was followed in 2024 by Happiness Now Completed. please log in to view this image Soft Cell: ‘One day you’re smearing your naked body with cat food, the next you’re at the garden centre’ Read more Ball published his memoir Electronic Boy: My Life in and Out of Soft Cell in 2020. He sustained numerous fractures in a fall down some stairs in 2022, and subsequently contracted pneumonia and sepsis, spending seven months in hospital including time in an induced coma. Almond added that he and Ball had recently completed a new Soft Cell album entitled Danceteria, named after the fabled New York nightclub which they visited at the height of their fame. “Dave was in such a great place emotionally,” he said. “He was focused and so happy with the new album that we completed only a few days ago. It’s so sad as 2026 was all set to be such an uplifting year for him, and I take some solace from the fact that he heard the finished record and felt that it was a great piece of work. Dave’s music is better than ever. His tunes and hooks are still unmistakably Soft Cell, yet he always took it to the next level, too.” Also paying tribute was Daniel Miller, founder of Mute records and a music producer, who worked with Soft Cell in their early years. “I was extremely impressed with Dave’s vision and his musicality … We have lost a true original,” he said.
Soft Cell were a significant part of the soundtrack of my life in the early ‘80s. Spiders and Juliette’s. Non-stop Erotic Cabaret was and remains an immense work of art. RIP Dave Ball. And thank you.
