MORE RUBBER TIRED HEARSES

You might have thought that the lurid canonization of Ronald Wilson Reagan in the Simi Valley sunset with Margaret Thatcher and Bo Derrick among the mourners was enough big media death for one week, but death don’t have no mercy in this land, (as the Grateful Dead once remarked.) Ray Charles liver burned out of seventy three years of intense usage, and guitarist Bob Quine gave up the fight. Ray will eulogized elsewhere, but Doc40 seemed the kind of place to make note of Quine’s passing. The obituary comes from the Artrocker online newsletter...

From the inauspicious beginnings file: In 1975 Quine got a job at Cinemabilia, a movie poster and book shop in New York City, where he worked with Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell. So, no surprise that they end up forming a band with Quine on guitar in the form of Richard Hell and the Voidoids(the seminal "Blank Generation" from '77 and "Destiny Street" in '82). Watch out for those clerk types behind the counter or the bar - you could be seeing members of the next great band before your eyes.
Quine wasn't someone who evidently came to rock and roll by slacker default. He went to law school and passed the bar (to stay outta Vietnam), although he eventually gave this up for a life of rock and roll. And of course we can't forget to thank him for the "Velvet Underground Bootleg Series: The Quine Tapes" from San Fran in 1969 - an ardent fan's labor of love that allows those of use not able to be there at the time experience it as if we were (Quine: "They had shows on some weeknights with two or three people in the club. I was one of the people").
So it must have been a dream come true for other Lou Reed philes when a fan of The Man joined his band. Quine played on "The Blue Mask" in '82 ("There was no rehearsing, no overdubs, no punch-in's for mistakes. The exact opposite of the Voidoids"), "Legendary Hearts" in '83 (On tour "[Lou] had to teach 'Sister Ray' and 'Heroin' to the other members of the band ... but I knew it already"), and "New Sensations" in '84.
He's also played with Brian Eno, Tom Waits ("Rain Dogs"), Marianne Faithfull, and others. Playing with the greats, however, didn't always come easy ("From '69 til '76, I never played in public. I would play by myself at home"). Around early 2002 Quine was still at it, even if the rest of the world wouldn't pay as much attention as when he was dead ("Recording session work has slowed down considerably, to say the least. There's not much to report. But I almost always get in at least three to four hours a day practicing, and I think I'm still improving").
Reading old interviews with him one picks up the musicians musician sensibility (In answer to the question "Are your solos usually improvised, or do you compose your solos in advance? Quine answered "98% improvised.
Once in a while with Richard Hell, I'd hear a cassette of a good solo I'd improvised live (e.g.: 'The Plan') and copy it. But it's never as good as the first time around"). This was a guy who was around when it all started, tho' he complained that it was hard to get a good guitar lesson in 1958 in the early years of rock and roll. We're probably all better off that he had to figure it out on his own - throwing out the template = original style. On the flip side how many people can count seeing Buddy Holly in concert as a rock and roll influence? And Coltrane.
Hopefully we can expect to see posthumous reissues and unreleased material coming out soon. Word has it that Quine recorded with Judah Bauer of John Spencer a year or two before his death, so we'll have to keep an eye open for that one.
So it was, the New York Times reported that Quine, 61, "had been despondent over the recent death of his wife," and "died of a heroin overdose."

Robert Quine, R.I.P.

CRYPTIQUE – There’s one kind favor I’ll ask of you...