Clem Burke – d. April 6th 2025

Sweat pools under your drum stool;
there's blood on the snare.
Every roll alternates hot and cool,
and every fill is a symphony.
Let every skin shudder,
let the backbeat sing one last time.

Read about Clem Burke here

 

Dave Allen – d. April 5th 2025

In the chasm of the bassline
you will find that essence rare:
the throb of steel-wound strings,
their slap like sinews snapping.
And oh, are we not entertained?

 

Read about Dave Allen here

Johnny Tillotson – d. April 1st 2025

Make the most of your time; a few
short 45s and a long fade-out,
swoonsome girls and misty-eyed
lenses on American Bandstand.
Sing through tremblin’ lips while
you can; Elvis is marching home.

 

Read about Johnny Tillotson here

Val Kilmer – d. April 1st 2025

No man made from ice can last;
they melt in the Hollywood heat
drain away into backlot sewers.
Life turns down its own sequel,
and for every saint
there are a million sinners.

 

Read about Val Kilmer here

Trevor Lock – d. March 2025

Grant me the gift
of an interposing hand
in the presence of
berserkers, the coolness
of an inside pocket
while a hot gun is held
to my unbowed head.

 

Read about Trevor Lock here

 

Richard Chamberlain – d. March 29th 2025

What nobility, anjin-san,
to play the tall man in the
tallest of tales, to conceal
the pain of forbidden love,
yet show each moment of it
in each glance, each stance.
 

Read about Richard Chamberlain here

Andy Peebles – d. March 22nd 2025

I turn the set of memory on,
tune the frequency out of time
to wavelengths of a life now gone,
to hear the stations of the mind;
Piccadilly 261,
1053 and 1089.

Read about Andy Peebles here

George Foreman – d. March 21st 2025

What is that sound?
leather on skin, shots
that could fell a tree.
The referee cuts through
a jungle’s heat to end it;
a life where, until now,
every step has been
a forward step.

Read about George Foreman here

Alex Wheatle – d. March 16th 2025

A hand picks up a pen,
draws a line of sufferation
from Brixton to Crongton.
So many barricades on
the road from brutality
to beauty; we’ll get there.

 

Read about Alex Wheatle here

Bruce Glover – d. March 12th 2025

If God had wanted man to act -
    - he would have given him
            more than one voice, Mr Kidd.
 
And if at first you don't succeed -
    - they say that death can be
            a great healer, Mr Wint.

Read about Bruce Glover here

Brian James – d. March 6th 2025

You couldn’t wait
to mess around
with our heads,
setting off your guitar
like it was a cannon,
the bootlegged sound
of relentless slaughter
on a distant Soho
night. Night night.

Read about Brian James here

Oleg Gordievsky – d. March 4th 2025

Bravery is an ideology of its own,
an uncertain code that accepts
the reward of an inevitable bullet.
Death is the final exfiltration, to be
stuffed into the trunk of history,
freedom in treason’s disguise.

Read about Oleg Gordievsky here

Roy Ayers – d. March 4th 2025

Beat my soul with a mallet
until it chimes like tuned steel.
Keep it bright; remember,
not all vibes are good vibes.
Bring me sunshine; doesn’t
everybody want a slice?

 

Read about Roy Ayers here

Jack Vettriano – d. March 1st 2025

When my final day is set into
its frame I want it to look like this:
she and I dancing on an empty
shore, a man stepping from dusk
to wind the gramophone, to pour
us both one last glass of wine.

 

Read about Jack Vettriano here

David Johansen – d. February 28th 2025

Get the glitter out your ass
and get up to the mic.
When all fails get into a tux,
get a new face, get busted.
Get whatever’s going,
even if it ain’t yours to get,
and get it while it’s hot.

Read about David Johansen here

Boris Spassky – d. February 27th 2025

Now, at your dead-draw ending,
history might speak of stalemate,
of gambits accepted and declined,
but in the Cold War of the board
there can be no detente, just
sixty-four squares on which to die.

 

Read about Boris Spassky here

Henry Kelly – d. February 25th 2025

Who am I? I am the face
of Little Europe, interlocutor
in the insignificant game.
What am I? I am a place,
a golden time, urbane visitor
to a continent with no name.

Read about Henry Kelly here

Roberta Flack – d. February 24th 2025

It’s long past midnight. A storm
passes through my room, sung
like still air, yet nursing a spark
of bliss to turn my cold to warm.
One soul, two lips, one tongue:
what gifts you gave to the dark.

Read about Roberta Flack here

Gene Hackman – d. February 18th 2025

Hey, you with the face
like a derelict fairground,
where you been? Busting
another crooked ass, maybe,
or cutting through the script
to what is real, or picking
your feet in Poughkeepsie.

 

Read about Gene Hackman here

Rick Buckler – d. February 17th 2025

Build the riser high for those
who serve the song with broken
sticks, sweating through a three-
buttoned suit while kicking the
beat forward in bowling shoes,
keeping time, and more than time.

Read about Rick Buckler here

Chris Moore – d. February 7th 2025

I dream of cities raised in
distant orbit, sleek ships at
anchor in deep atmospheres.
If the stars are not for man,
the shape of our lonely future
will be in its illustrated detail.

Read about Chris Moore here

Brian Murphy – d. February 1st 2025

Consider the situation: brow,
furrowed with resignation,
scene after scene, playing
what the quiet ones know;
that sometimes the sequel
to love is emasculation.

Read about Brian Murphy here

Marianne Faithfull – d. January 30th 2025

A nation swung on its axis;
a voice turning from sugar
to sandpaper, a siren’s face
streaked with expensive
mascara, a cooling shadow
looking through us from the
back seat of a sports car.

Read about Marianne Faithfull here

Christopher Hughes – d. January 29th 2025

What do they know of trivia whom only

trivia know? You could tell me who nearly
said that, while grudgingly accepting that
though knowledge is not always power,
information is its steadfast currency.

Read about Christopher Hughes here