sloth unleashed

(via Andy Johns, 62, Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin Engineer, Dies - NYTimes.com)

Andy Johns, a record producer and engineer who was involved in several canonical albums of 1970s rock, including the Rolling Stones’ “Exile on Main St.,” Television’s “Marquee Moon” and a string of recordings by Led Zeppelin, died on April 7 in Van Nuys, Calif. He was 62…

(via Jonathan Winters, Unpredictable Comedian, Dies at 87 - NYTimes.com)

Jonathan Winters, the rubber-faced comedian whose unscripted flights of fancy inspired a generation of improvisational comics, and who kept television audiences in stitches with Main Street characterslike Maude Frickert, a sweet-seeming grandmother with a barbed tongue and a roving eye, died on Thursday at his home in Montecito, Calif. He was 87…

(via Carmine Infantino, Who Revamped Batman and the Flash, Dies at 87 - NYTimes.com)

Carmine Infantino — the man who SAVED BATMAN! — died on Thursday at his home in Manhattan. Mr. Infantino, a celebrated comic-book artist who also drew the Flash, was 87.

His agent, J. David Spurlock, confirmed the death.

Mr. Infantino’s dynamic, avant-garde aesthetic helped usher in the “silver age” of comic books, which held sway from the mid-1950s to about 1970. He was known in particular for his long association with DC Comics, where he began as an artist, became an editor and was later the publisher.

Sleek and streamlined, Mr. Infantino’s work married comic-book art — formerly busier and baggier — to midcentury modernism. He was considered one of the industry’s finest pencilers, as the artist who first gives a story visual form is known. (An inker follows behind, filling in the penciler’s lines.)

As a cover artist Mr. Infantino was a master of motion, and on each of the blizzard of covers he drew for DC, the title character seems to spring from the page, straight toward the viewer.

He was also famed for his death-defying resuscitation of two of DC’s most terminal cases: the Flash, selling poorly at midcentury and threatened with cancellation, and Batman, similarly consigned…

gettyimagesarchive:

Singer Alvin Lee of the rock band 10 Years After dies at 68.

(via gettyimages)

(via Reg Presley, Lead Singer of Troggs, Dies at 71 - NYTimes.com)

From left, Peter Staples, Reg Presley, Ronnie Bond and Chris Britton of the Troggs, who were first named the Troglodytes.

Reg Presley, a bricklayer-turned-singer whose ebulliently lusty vocal on the Troggs’ smash hit “Wild Thing” helped elevate the song to rock ’n’ roll legend, died on Monday at his home in Andover, England. He was 71…

(via Ravi Shankar, Indian Sitarist, Dies at 92 - NYTimes.com)

Ravi Shankar, the Indian sitarist and composer whose collaborations with Western classical musicians as well as rock stars helped foster a worldwide appreciation of India’s traditional music, died Tuesday in a hospital near his home in Southern California. He was 92…

(via Mickey Baker, Guitarist Whose Riffs Echo Today, Dies at 87 - NYTimes.com)

Mickey Baker with Sylvia Vanderpool Robinson. They recorded “Love Is Strange,” which sold more than a million copies.

(via Earl Carroll, Lead Singer of the Cadillacs, Dies at 75 - NYTimes.com)

(via Alex Karras, N.F.L. Lineman and Actor, Dies at 77 - NYTimes.com)

Alex Karras, a fierce and relentless All-Pro lineman for the Detroit Lions whose irrepressible character frequently placed him at odds with football’s authorities but led to a second career as an actor on television and in the movies, died Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 77…