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Post by crash46 on Dec 31, 2009 1:18:24 GMT -4
We can't move the posts, but we can copy them and continue the discussion here. Passing along for Nick, Steve, and anyone else who might care to know: www.ocregister.com/news/sullivan-226142-beach-drummer.htmlRock drummer found dead in his homeHUNTINGTON BEACH James Owen Sullivan, a drummer and backup vocalist for the Southern California band Avenged Sevenfold, was found dead at his home on Monday, authorities have confirmed. Sullivan, who went by the stage name The Rev, appears to have died of natural causes, Huntington Beach police Lt. John Domingo said. Police were notified by firefighters who had responded to Sullivan's home about 1 p.m. Sullivan was 28. The Orange County Coroner's Office is investigating the death. Avenged Sevenfold formed in Huntington Beach in 1999. Sullivan was a member from the beginning. CLICK HERE for more as Register music writer Ben Wener looks at Sullivan's career. Since then, the five-man group has put out four albums and won Best New Artist at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2006. The group's self-titled fourth album hit No. 4 on the Billboard 200 chart in 2007. According to a message posted by Zacky Vengeance on the band's MySpace page, the group was hard a work on a fifth album. By Monday evening, whispers about Sullivan's death had spread to the band's fan sites on the Internet, which quickly filled with messages of condolence. +1. I was truly heartbroken upon hearing this news. It left me no choice but to just sit down late last night and listen to all of his music in his memory until the wee hours of the morning. I couldn't imagine doing anything else. If you and Matt are on board, can we move these previous three posts into a new thread of its own? I'd like to say some more, but to continue this in here any further, I feel, defeats the purpose of a "spontaneous" conception and this is of enough significance, I would think, to merit a topic for the Rev, even if it ends up being just me and Steve talking in there. Plus, in the future, I might like to quickly find this story and discussion without wading through pages of spontaneous conceptions. |
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Post by a Nick O! on Dec 31, 2009 6:08:46 GMT -4
+1. I was truly heartbroken upon hearing this news. It left me no choice but to just sit down late last night and listen to all of his music in his memory until the wee hours of the morning. I couldn't imagine doing anything else. I imagine there'll be a little redundancy since a topic was created at Pulse in the meantime, so I'll post our two replies from over there and then we'll continue on without me having to waste time replying to lockebox's clueless comments. I love Avenged Sevenfold and it broke my heart to hear this news last night. All I could do after that was soak it all in by listening to all of their music. The songs will live forever, but A7X will never be the same without The Rev.  . This devastated me. On top of my own loss, I feel so sorry for Jimmy's family and friends, but especially his four best friends. For me, this is almost like if Ringo Starr had died unexpectedly at 28. Maybe this is like losing John Bonham or Keith Moon. Hopefully the comparisons stop there, with the face value of drummers in hugely important (this whole analogy is that A7X is that important to me) rock bands dying young. Gathering that Jimmy was the most reckless guy in the group, my spirits will brighten if the cause turns out not to be drug-related. I know they made a conscious effort a couple years back to steer media coverage away from their drug use and more toward their music and brotherhood, though they never mixed business and pleasure. I know at least Shadows and the Rev have wives now, and I truly hope that the lack of attention to it means that band drug use had at least scaled back, if not stopped altogether. I'm hoping they didn't just shut up about drug (ab)use and sweep it under the rug. As for the fate of Avenged, I hear the tracking for the new album is done. I don't know if that includes overdubs or if any vocals (backing vocals, in particular) have been recorded. So at best, let's say Jimmy's parts are all recorded and ready to go. It goes without saying his death pushes back everything, but when the album finally gets released, what then? Do they hire a temporary drummer to fill in for live shows? And would he be able to pull off the Rev's backing vocals? Jimmy is irreplaceable. His drumming and to a lesser extent, his backing vocals are huge components of Avenged's sound. Not to mention he's a best friend of his bandmates. Assuming Jimmy's drum tracks are complete, I'd love to hear the new album, but beyond that, I just don't know what comes next. It's so unfair that I'll never be able to enjoy Avenged's music quite as much or in the same way ever again as I have for the past 6 years. I love Avenged Sevenfold and it broke my heart to hear this news last night. The songs will live forever, but A7X will never be the same without The Rev. . Seconded. And as for your sentence I deleted, I got started today, and I'll get there (and was and will be repeatedly brought to tears with any prominent drum fill or groove, any death lyric, or any musical parts of any songs that intensely moved me to begin with under the right circumstances), but I regrettably don't have the time for an A7X marathon right now. Plus, despite being chronologically appropriate, I wouldn't get the most meaningful impact if I started with the EP or Sounding the Seventh Trumpet. I had to start with Waking the Fallen, a truly watershed album in my musical life. I got through the first 9 tracks today in the car, and meant to finish it off once I got in the door, but I didn't have the time, and now it's too late to give it (or any music) my attention, as I'm winding down for bed now. |
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Post by a Nick O! on Dec 31, 2009 6:33:14 GMT -4
I'll go ahead and post my 3 Facebook updates about this, too. I uploaded my more recent pics with Avenged to Facebook and cropped down the one with The Rev and set it as my profile pic. (I already had the photos uploaded to MySpace, so that was a simple few clicks of the mouse to set that as my default over there.) Right now, I can't see myself changing the pictures (or my PMB/SMB avatars) for the next full year. I wasn't even able to get any further into the catalog today than finishing off Waking the Fallen at home and the first four tracks of City of Evil on the way to work and back tonight. He died on Monday, I didn't hear about it until I got home from work, I have lunch with a friend on Tuesday, go to work that night, have to stay up until 7:30 AM this morning working on a project - my favorite DJ enlisted me as a consultant on my own Alt station's year-end countdown (  !), since the PD and MD took the rest of the year off. I sleep in as late as I can manage, do my last Top 40 of the year so I can quickly revise my '09 Songs list ASAP, went to work tonight, which lasted until 2 AM. A co-worker was DJ'ing in the adjacent bar until 3 AM. I've got a doctor's appointment at 10:15 this morning that my parents will be coming up for, so I'll have to tidy up my place a little beforehand. And to top it all off, I'm trying to skim through the '09 albums I finished off a long time ago, so I don't sell them short compared to the ones I've finished in the last 2 months or so. (Rancid's album was background music for my shower, I started AFI's album during dinner, after I'd finished off Waking the Fallen, and finished AFI after I got home tonight. I work tomorrow night and won't get home til at least 2 AM. Then Friday, I'll be glued to my Alt station's chart (which I already have) for about 9 hours. When will I have time to properly pay my respects to The Rev? He sure picked a pretty inconvenient time to pass away, if he had to do it. |
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Post by mtm4319 on Dec 31, 2009 9:41:23 GMT -4
I know I probably sound insensitive by picking this out of everything from which to reply, but... my favorite DJ enlisted me as a consultant on my own Alt station's year-end countdown ( !), since the PD and MD took the rest of the year off. Whoa, that's pretty cool. What did you do, exactly (if you're at freedom to say) - help pick out the songs that go on the countdown or something else? |
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Post by a Nick O! on Jan 1, 2010 21:55:01 GMT -4
I know I probably sound insensitive by picking this out of everything from which to reply, but that's pretty cool. What did you do, exactly (if you're at freedom to say) - help pick out the songs that go on the countdown or something else? No, it's fine. The Rev's death is getting less and less newsworthy as time goes on, I didn't expect much more commentary in here to begin with, and I figured somebody might pick out that sentence and ask about it, especially since I added the shocked emoticon in mid-sentence parentheses. I was already up the morning of the 29th, because I texted the DJ to request an Avenged tune in tribute to The Rev dying the day before. I hit send when he came on for his first talking break, but my text wasn't even necessary. The Rev's death was the first thing he talked about and he said they were gonna do "a couple" from Avenged. He came back to recap the story and then busted out "Unholy Confessions" for the old school fans. I sent him a text of appreciation somewhere in there, but never got a personal response back, since I assumed he was being bombarded with so many texts from other listeners just finding out he died. So since I type my name unless he replies to me, I'm sure he knew I was up and listening. So an hour into his show, he replies to me, saying nothing about The Rev, but "Hey man...Thoughts on Anberlin 'Feel Good Drag' and its place in the year end countdown..." I looked it up on Mediabase's YTD for the station and see that it's the #1 song with a lead of a few hundred spins. The only song to get played more than 1000 times this year. I think it had roughly 1200. So I reply something back like, "Well, Mediabase shows it as your #1 YTD, so I would guess Top 5 easily, if not #1. Why do you ask?" "Because I'm putting it together right now and I saw that it officially was released in '08 as a single and I know you're the man that keeps us honest on things...Hey when I'm done with this today I'm going to email it to you and get your thoughts...Is that cool?" (I express how honored, privileged, and flattered I was.) (I give him my email address, in case he doesn't have it offhand, and go ahead and say that A7X's "Scream" is a song that should absolutely be considered as an '09 song.) "Now listen man...I'm not saying I'm going to change anything if you don't think it's where it should be...but I totally trust your opinion...and another brain on this sorta thing is pretty much always a good idea." "I will...That was one I was wondering...I'm just trying to keep as much '08 stuff off as possible." (I said something like I totally understood that I was merely a consultant and that he was free to take as many or as few of my suggestions and I'd be happy either way.) "[The program director] said he wanted it based on the Mediabase most played...So that's what I'm using with my own judgment...Cool man...I'll send this over when I get done in a while...You're the man." So he sent me his rough draft and from looking at their Mediabase YTD on All Access (wish I would've thought to save their full Mediabase.com YTD when I looked at it when we had that UCLA account), I came up with a list of 8-10 "2008" songs from their own Top 50 that he had left off. Then looking through my full year of Alternative charts, I came up with 6-8 more "2008" songs I felt ought to be considered, plus 2 more '09 songs that I thought might be worth a look to add toward the bottom. I stopped there. Scanning through my genre-less masterlist of 2009 singles for every Alt single they played but didn't chart nationally, to make sure I didn't miss anything, would have been way too much effort. I wrote a sentence or two after each song, making a case for them. I then only saw about 10 songs that could reasonably be removed from his draft to make room and made a short case for the exclusion of each. He ended up adding back in 5 of my suggested "2008" songs (including "Decode" and "Ghost Town"  and rearranged a few others. It ended up looking pretty decent (in terms of honesty), as far as radio stations' year-end charts go. He sent me his revised final draft a couple days before it aired. I was gonna listen anyway, but I didn't look at his list as I went along typing up my own copy of it, so at least there was a little element of uncertainty (if not surprise) to it. |
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Passing along for Nick, Steve, and anyone else who might care to know:
+1. I was truly heartbroken upon hearing this news. It left me no choice but to just sit down late last night and listen to all of his music in his memory until the wee hours of the morning. I couldn't imagine doing anything else.
and rearranged a few others. It ended up looking pretty decent (in terms of honesty), as far as radio stations' year-end charts go. He sent me his revised final draft a couple days before it aired. I was gonna listen anyway, but I didn't look at his list as I went along typing up my own copy of it, so at least there was a little element of uncertainty (if not surprise) to it.