The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (247 page)

Thursday 6

Robbin Crosby

(Robbinson Lance Crosby - San Diego, California, 4 August 1959)

Ratt

Guitarist with Ratt since 1979, Robbin Crosby threw off the poses and pulled out the riffs as the metal idols shifted a million copies or more of their first four Atlantic albums. The band -Crosby, Steve Pearcy (vocals), Warren DeMartini (guitar), Juan Croucier (bass) and Bobby Blotzer (drums) - were originally known as Mickey Ratt when they impressed the label with their first, self-released album in 1983. Melodic hit ‘Round and Round’ (co-written by Crosby) helped their Top Ten debut album
Out of the Cellar
(1984) top the triple platinum mark by 1985, while the band’s tongue-in-cheek masquerading foreshadowed much of the California hair-metal scene of the next decade.

Ratt split up in 1992 amid considerable animosity, while Robbin Crosby’s dependence upon drugs caused his health to collapse in the years that followed. The big-built guitarist was pronounced HIV positive in 1995, his weight ballooning to over 400 lb as a pancreatic condition threw his metabolism irreparably out of balance. And although Ratt had reformed toward the end of the decade, it took Crosby’s death in 2002 to see the group finally reconciled.

Thursday 13

Daniel Langlois

(St Albert, Alberta, 1982)

Jordan ‘The Judge’ Wodehouse

(Edmonton, Alberta, 19 August 1982)

Compromise

At the time of their deaths, guitarists Daniel Langlois and Jordan Wodehouse were still in their teens, halted at the point of major success with straight-edge rockers Compromise – Langlois having been a member of the Canadian band for just two months. For his part, Wodehouse wrote and produced most of their music, also serving as the group’s driver.

Having already conquered home territory, Compromise looked to strengthen their growing fanbase while on tour in the US, a series of shows providing an exciting challenge for the young band. After a well-received gig in Birmingham, Alabama, Wodehouse drove his band to the next destination at around 2 am, unaware of the impatient driver of a 1994 Nissan Pathfinder tailing Compromise’s 1985 Ford van. The more nimble Nissan accelerated to an approximate speed of 90 mph to the van’s 75 mph, suddenly rear-ending the Ford with a massive impact that sent both vehicles hurtling in opposite directions. The van struck a tree, which virtually ripped it in half, all five band members being thrown from the vehicle. Wodehouse, who was ejected from the front window, was killed instantly, while Langlois, asleep in a bunk when thrown from the rear window into the path of another car, died on arrival in hospital. Singer Jesse Zaraska, bassist Braden Sustrik and drummer Ryan Kittlitz survived the collision, as did the culpable Nissan driver, Ricky Nolen. In a tribute to the band’s fast-rising status, Wodehouse’s funeral was attended by nearly 800 mourners.

Thursday 27

John Entwistle

(Chiswick, London, 9 October 1944)

The Who (Various acts)

With the classic rhythm section now gone, it was an altogether quieter time for the erstwhile World’s Loudest Band. In truth, John Entwistle could probably have done without the battering his right ear took from Pete Townshend’s maxed-out guitar amp every night; in later life, the musician suffered more from deafness than the rest of The Who put together. Entwistle had himself been a man of few words, anyway: as an artist though, he was a true pioneer of his instrument and preferred to do his talking via his bass guitar.

The Who were just the band for a serious musician like Entwistle – raucous, untamed and energetic when they were young, defiantly ambitious as they became an established name, loved and revered elder statesmen by the time they had passed three decades in the game. Entwistle and Acton County Grammar School pal Townshend were first off the mark, teaming up in bluesy rock ‘n’ roll band The Confederates, while Entwistle moonlighted with the jazz band for whom he’d played for a while. Such was the bassist’s gentle demeanour that colleagues at his Civil Service tax department job hadn’t even realized he’d left when The Who went full time. Joined by the strident Roger Daltrey (vocals), Entwistle and Townshend had furthered the legend as The Detours (then with Doug Sandon on drums), before performing as The High Numbers under image-obsessed manager Peter Meaden. The Who as we know them really began with the sudden arrival of a new percussionist (Keith Moon) and a fresh manager/producer, Kit Lambert, who could see longer-term possibilities for the band than merely being mod-pacifiers. By the end of 1965 and following the release of the timeless ‘My Generation’ (both album and single, the latter of which boasted an Entwistle bass solo), The Who were one of the biggest new groups in the UK. In the band’s moody bassist, fans could look to a stoic presence amid all the mayhem that Daltrey, Moon and Townshend were to create. Thus he became known affectionately as ‘The Ox’, immortalized as such on the final track of that first album.

John Entwistle: Anyway, anyhow, anywhere …

Entwistle maintained his image throughout the great Who years of the late sixties and seventies, adding his flourishes to the band as they graduated from the spiky pop of their earliest guise to the sprawling rock statements of
Tommy
(1969),
Quadrophenia
(1973) and beyond. Entwistle’s own songwriting within The Who was limited to a few songs – among them ‘Boris the Spider’ (1966) and the great ‘Heaven and Hell’ (1970) – though his gifts extended beyond what was generally assumed of him. As a boy, he’d sung at just two years of age; he also learned the piano and was also highly proficient on trumpet and tenor horn. In adult life, Entwistle was also a reasonably accomplished painter, widely known for his love of the countryside, dogs and cars (although he never learned to drive). But, although he enjoyed a drink or three in the company of Moon, what Entwistle
wasn’t
noted for was the kind of wild living associated with his bandmates.

The way he went, therefore, came as a bolt from the blue to his many admirers. In 2002, the reunited Who (well, the three survivors from the early days, plus well-connected drummer Zak Starkey) embarked upon a number of live shows in the US, the multi-date tour beginning in Las Vegas on 28 June. The evening before the first concert, John Entwistle had clearly decided a little entertainment was required before the hard slog ahead. The musician disappeared to his room at the Hard Rock Hotel at around 3 am after a session drinking with his band. Daltrey and Townshend were concerned, however, when their bassist failed to appear the following morning. Their fears were confirmed: Entwistle – who had also been due to open an exhibition of his artwork in Vegas the following day – was found dead of a heart attack, induced by cocaine use and the rigours, it seems, of a session with an obliging Las Vegas call-girl, who had described her companion as unresponsive when she awoke that morning.

‘I drink in them.’

The Ox replies to questions about his car collection

A devastated Roger Daltrey nonetheless had to admit that it might just have been the way The Ox would have wanted to go: ‘If John could have planned his death, he would have written it almost the way it happened. The only thing that would have been different would be that he’d want his body to be mummified and placed in the bed, the room filled with his beloved fish and his guitars. He’d have wanted a glass door to seal the room, with a notice saying “Hard Rock Exhibit”. It would have been The Entwistle Suite – he’d have loved that.’ With Italian-born bassist Pino Palladino replacing him on the tour, The Ox was finally put out to grass in Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire.

Entwistle’s extensive collection of effects – including bass guitars, costumes and his own works of art – fetched in excess of $1 million at a Sotheby’s auction in 2003. One guitar, a 1958 Gibson Explorer, went for close to £100K, while Peter Hook of New Order was understood to have been the recipient of another. Ironically, given his original employment, some of the money raised was used to offset tax demands against his vast Cotswolds mansion.

See also
Keith Moon (
August 1978). The Who’s first managers, Peter Meaden (1978) and Kit Lambert (
April 1981), both also died prematurely.