Thirty songs that define 2009.
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Your (Almost) Daily Playlist (6-12-20)
Inspired by Black Music Month, LGBTQ Pride Month, and the June 12 birthdays of Robyn, They Might Be Giants’ John Linnell, The Troggs’ Reg Presley, Silversun Pickups’ Brian Auger, Boston’s Brad Delp, Rocky Burnette, Lyn Collins, Meredith Brooks, Vic Damone, Scott Thompson, Harvey Danger’s Sean Nelson, and Bounty Killer.
Your (Almost) Daily Playlist (6-7-20)
Inspired by Black Music Month, LGBTQ Pride Month, and the June 7 birthdays of Prince, Tom Jones, Violent Femmes’ Gordon Gano, Whodini’s Ecstasy, Prefab Sprout’s Paddy McAloon, Chromeo’s Dave 1, Dean Martin, Joey Scarbury, Fetty Wap, George Ezra, Sunshine Anderson and Broadway composer Charles Strouse.
To Friends
Yesterday was my friend Christoph’s 37th birthday. On Friday night a group of his friends and colleagues got together to honor the man. Sid Krofft of H.R. Pufnstuf, The Bugaloos and Land of the Lost fame and a client of Christoph emceed an evening of musical performances by Brian and Nikki of Silversun Pickups (Christoph and I worked with Nikki at Rhino Entertainment; he and Nikki became close friends), Chrysta Bell (who worked with David Lynch, another client of Christoph), Dean Wareham of Galaxie 500 and Luna (Christoph and I worked on a Luna retrospective release while at Rhino) and Joey Altruda. Sid entertained us with stories of parties he attended with Christoph. Chrysta thanked Christoph for being so instrumental in her career.
After the performances we watched a short film. It opened with a black screen. A recording of Christoph played. He first mentioned the date of the recording, which was a couple of months ago, and then talked about what he wanted at his funeral – music and champagne, a celebration of his life. The remainder of the film consisted of images of Christoph, most of the time with friends, most of the time smiling.
When the film ended, we each took candles and flowers and walked from the Masonic Hall at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, where this celebration of Christoph’s life took place, to the cemetery’s South Palms building, where Christoph’s urn is. Brain cancer took him last month.
His absence is deeply felt.
Christoph Lonnie Balderrama-Buerger
1976 – 2014
Based on the Stephen King novella The Body, Stand By Me was a 1986 movie about a group of friends. The film took its name from Ben E. King’s 1961 smash hit.
Today is Ben E. King’s 76th birthday. Our playlist includes the best of his solo work and his work with the second incarnation of The Drifters.
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