By now, the parade of early deaths of beloved musicians is long indeed.  Not a few of these losses have occurred in small airplane crashes:  Glenn Miller, John Denver, Jim Reeves, Otis Redding, Jim Croce, Rick Nelson, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Aaliyah, and three bandmembers in Lynyrd Skynyrd:  Ronnie van Zant, Stevie Gaines, and Cassie Gaines.  There is even a parallel to “The Day the Music Died” in country music, when Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins all died in a plane crash on March 5, 1963. 

(June 2013/1)

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I was amused to see that one of the song titles on the Silencers album Cyclerific Sounds is “Abracapocus”, a scramble of “Abracadabra” and “Hocus Pocus” that is taken from a memorable Bugs Bunny cartoon, Transylvania 6-5000.  This 1963 cartoon – which features a vampire named Count Blood Count – is notable as the final Bugs Bunny short made by Chuck Jones in his 30-plus year career at Warner Bros. Studios before leaving to form his own animation company.  (In earlier years, he was credited as Charles M. Jones).  The title is adapted from a Glenn Miller hit, “Pennsylvania 6-5000”, and a comedy/horror movie called Transylvania 6-5000 came out in 1985. 

(December 2014)