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Telegraph
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
The 10 songs that defined Ozzy Osbourne
Here's a game that can be played at home: how many artists and bands can you name that single handedly created an entire new genre of music? For all his achievements, both famous and infamous, towering above them all is the bald and immortal truth that Ozzy Osbourne, as a member of Black Sabbath, not only forged a new musical form, but that its sound was the most redoubtable of all. Metal. Please don't be fooled by the encomiums and eulogies, though, because Ozzy was not always loved. Long before the Prince of Darkness became an unlikely international treasure, and certainly before metal reaped the credit from high-minded critics that it so obviously deserves, much of his musical output received a very rough ride indeed. In a far from untypical review, Creem magazine, for example, dismissed Sabbath's masterful 1972 album Vol. 4 as 'the same old s---'. But metal is the people's music, and, ultimately, the people will out. Perhaps the only pleasing aspect of the death of Ozzy Osbourne is that he lived long enough for his finest singles and albums to be accepted by all. In receiving his just due, those early-day critics – or the worst of them, at least – were proved wrong. The kids, meanwhile, as ever, were right. Please stand by, then, for 10 highlights from the musical career of Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne… 10. Shot in the Dark (1986) Although its parent album, The Ultimate Sin, is something of a pop-metal dud, the record's leadoff single, Shot In The Dark, is a peach. With a chorus to die for, the song's reverb-heavy sound typifies loud music in the middle part of the eighties – a period that was about to be usurped by speed metal bands who turned up the volume, quickened the tempos and darkened the lights. Ironically, it was this tranche of groups – with Metallica, Slayer and Pantera among them – who would help revivify the reputation of Black Sabbath themselves. Curiously, Shot In The Dark is notable for its absence from subsequent compilation albums. Ostensibly, the reason given is that Ozzy hates The Ultimate Sin. Maybe. But rumours persist that complications as to who actually wrote the song might be the real story behind these rather glaring omissions. 9. Supernaut (1972) In a case of too-much-too-soon that seems extreme even by the standards of rock and roll, by the time Sabbath came to record their fourth album, Vol. 4, in Los Angeles in 1972, they were so frazzled on cocaine that they considered titling the record Snowblind. Ensconced in a shared home in Beverly Hills, things became so arduous that, upon returning to England, Geezer Butler's girlfriend didn't even recognise him. If any song can be said to represent the sound of a band running on adrenaline, anxiety and heavy-duty substances, Supernaut is that song. Even the lyrics speak of a artists who are losing control of their senses. 'I want to reach out and touch the sky,' Ozzy sang, 'I want to touch the sun'. And speaking of people who were on a different plane, Frank Zappa would later tell Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler that Supernaut was one of his favourite rock songs of all time. 'You can just hear the adrenaline on it,' he said. 8. Suicide Solution (1980) Some of the cuts featured on our list are stone cold bangers. Others, though, make the grade for reasons of wider significance. In its heralding of the moral panic into which metal and hard rock would be swept in the United States, in the 1980s, Suicide Solution belongs to the latter camp. In 1984, the parents of 19-year-old John McCollum, who had shot himself in the head (it was claimed) immediately after listening to the song, sued Osbourne along with CBS Records for 'encouraging self-destructive behaviour' in young people who were 'especially susceptible' to the influence of rock and roll. That the lawsuit was dismissed on the grounds that the First Amendment protected the singer's right to free speech did nothing stop the coming war on loud music. As well as the efforts of the Washington lobby group the Parents Music Resource Center, groups such as Slayer, Suicidial Tendencies and Judas Priest would also find themselves the subject of unwanted legal attention in the wake of tragedies for which they bore no responsibility. 7. Mama, I'm Coming Home (1991) The tasteful monster ballad Mama, I'm Coming Home makes the cut for sentimental reasons. As one of the songs Ozzy Osbourne sang at the Back To The Beginning farewell concert at Villa Park – which, incredibly, took place just this month – the sight of Osbourne singing about returning home, in this case to the very neighbourhood in which he was raised, was poignant even before he passed away. But with the news this week that the gig will next year receive a theatrical release, the performance may well become a defining moment in the history of rock and roll. There's a different sentimental reason for the song's inclusion, too. Mama, I'm Coming Home was co-written by another hard-bitten legend whose death made the world of music an emptier place. Take a bow, Ian 'Lemmy' Kilmister. 6. No More Tears (1991) At the time Ozzy Osbourne released No More Tears, the leadoff single from the album of the same name, in 1991, his career was in something of a slump. Despite his previous album, 1989's No Rest Of The Wicked, attaining double-platinum status in the States, a review in Rolling Stone had stung its creator. It's fine, they said, but it's nothing new. Change, though, was afoot. With its subterranean groove and its excoriating lead guitar work, courtesy of Zakk Wylde, with No More Tears, Ozzy managed to deliver a song that was both familiar yet somehow new. With lyrics such as 'your mama told that you're not supposed to talk to strangers, look in the mirror, tell me, do you think your life's in danger?' the sense of unease remained, as it should, but the spacious music heralded a surprisingly adept reappraisal of his sound. In short, despite not being a particularly big hit, No More Tears signalled that there was life in the old god yet. Duly, its parent album would go on to sell more than five million copies in the United States alone. 5. Crazy Train (1980) As far as debut solo singles go, this one is hard to beat. Anchored by Randy Rhoads's irresistible riff – a series of notes that deftly moved away from the blues-based rock template of the seventies to a sound that would come to define eighties metal – Crazy Train would go on to sell five million copies across the world. It also happens to be the song to which Osbourne's once-local football team, Aston Villa, take to the field. Remarkably, following his sacking by Black Sabbath, in 1979, believing his career to be over, Ozzy retired to a hotel room in Los Angeles in which he intended to take drugs and drink until he ran out of money. He then planned to return to Birmingham to rejoin life as a civilian. Little did he know that his career's second act was about to begin. 4. War Pigs (1970) To be perfectly honest, at least four songs are deserving of the number one slot on this. Among them, clearly, is War Pigs. Rather impressively, the song was born not from a writing session, but from good old musical chops. On the road in mainland Europe, in 1968, Black Sabbath (who at that time were trading under the name Earth) used to fill out their sets with improvisational jams. According to drummer Bill Ward, this most notable of tracks came together in this way. As well as much else, War Pigs heralded the news that a new sheriff was in town. Held in check by Ozzy Osbourne's (largely) unaccompanied vocal, the song offered the clearest imaginable evidence that the hopeful days of the sixties were at an end. Buckle up, boys and girls, things were about to get dark. 3. Iron Man (1970) If Crazy Train set the template for metal riffs in the eighties, it was Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi's hulking chord progression in Iron Man that provided the spine for the genre as a whole. So perfect is it, in fact, that when adding his vocal, Ozzy Osbourne wisely decided to simply sing along with Iommi's thunderous emanations. No additional melody was required. And here's a fun fact for you: at the time of the band wrote the song, Iron Man was actually called Iron Bloke. Yeah. Doesn't work quite so well, does it? 2. Paranoid (1970) With their tritone chord structures – known as 'diabolus in musica', or 'the Devil's music' – and their dark themes, one thing Sabbath never expected to become was pop stars. But when Paranoid, the title track from their second LP, reached number two on the British singles chart, they did just that. Remarkably, the whole thing came together in an instant. With the parent album needing an extra three-minutes or so of music, at the very last minute, the band wrote the track on the hoof. As Geezer Butler recalled to Guitar World magazine, 'A lot of the Paranoid album was written around the time of our first album, Black Sabbath. We recorded the whole thing in about two or three days, live in the studio. The song Paranoid was written as an afterthought. We basically needed a three-minute filler for the album, and Tony [Iommi] came up with the riff. I quickly did the lyrics, and Ozzy was reading them as he was singing.' As fast as that, a classic was born. 1. Black Sabbath (1970) Placing the opening song from Sabbath's first album at the top of this pile may imply that things went downhill right from the start. Evidently, they did not. But in a blush over six minutes, with Black Sabbath, the group set the template that is still being followed this day by metal bands from all over the world. The term 'heavy metal' may not have been affixed to Sabbath for a further four years – and even then, at first, it was used as an insult – but it was born right here, with this song. Fifty-five years after its initial release, the damn thing still sound otherworldly. What's more, its hallmarks remain in constant use. Ominous tempo? Check. Down-tuned guitars? Tick. Lyrics about Satan? Gotcha covered. And then there's the vocals. With his strange and hypnotic voice drifting uneasily over the top of the music, weirdly off the beat, Ozzy's own contribution is in itself deeply significant. Welcome to a new world of overwhelming dread.
Telegraph
19-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Why ‘twisted' Lou Reed hated his fans
Reed's 1975 album Metal Machine Music, there's one moment that is undeniably sweeter, more memorable, more perfect than any other. It's when you turn it off. You'll never regret that moment. Not today. Not tomorrow. And not for the rest of your life. The LP was released 50 years ago this week. Its cover is a backlit shot of the former Velvet Underground guitarist and singer on stage; he exudes New York street cool in leather and shades. Only for the first 10 seconds of the actual record, though, is there even a hint that this might be the start of a rock album, picking up perhaps from the howling feedback and distortion that closes European Son, the final track on 1967's The Velvet Underground & Nico. That hope is soon dashed. Metal Machine Music's vinyl grooves contain 65 minutes and three seconds of dissonant noise, screaming in your ear like a hell's-mouth chorus. There's no discernible melody, very little progression, and only at minute 62 and 46 seconds does the suggestion of a rhythm occur. Music magazine Creem reviewed it in a box that simply said, in capital letters, 'NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO…' (plus a lot more 'NOs'). So many fans returned it immediately after purchase that Reed's record company, RCA, withdrew the original vinyl LP within weeks. Review of Lou Reed's 'Metal Machine Music", 1975. 50 years this month — Bill Pourquoimec (@BillPourquoimec) July 17, 2025 Remarkably, the album landed less than three years on from the release of Transformer (1972) – the masterful David Bowie and Mick Ronson-produced solo album, which included Vicious, Walk on the Wild Side and Perfect Day (on which Reed was beautifully accompanied by Ronson on piano). That album confirmed Reed as one of the great songwriters of his generation; audiences adored it. But for the surly Brooklynite, that was the problem. 'I put out Metal Machine Music precisely to put a stop to all of it,' he declared in Victor Bockris's 1994 biography Transformer: The Lou Reed Story. 'It was a giant f--- you. I wanted to clear the air and get rid of all those f---ing a--holes who show up and yell Vicious and Walk on the Wild Side.' It's the sort of truculence that Reed was famous for; his former Velvet Underground bandmate John Cale called him 'a twisted, scary monster'. And that 'S' word crops up a lot. Bockris later noted that 'it wasn't easy to make Lou a famous pop figure. He was a hard figure to market because the edges were so hard, and he was kind of scary, you know, a scary figure.' That extended to fans and friends alike. In Dylan Jones's oral biography David Bowie: A Life, the rock journalist Allan Jones describes seeing Reed's 1979 concert at London's Hammersmith Odeon, at which the crowd kept 'calling out for his old songs… Lou eventually told us all to f--- off, so lo and behold a lot of people did.' When most of the audience had left, Jones added, 'he started playing [the Velvet Underground's] Heroin, Waiting for the Man, and all the songs they'd been screaming for'. It was after the concert, though, that the writer was told by a press officer that Reed had left with Bowie, and he was invited to join them for dinner. Jones was seated at an adjacent table, he recalled, 'and suddenly there was this kind of explosion, smashing glasses and Lou was dragging Bowie across the table and b---h-slapping him across the face'. He reported Reed screaming, 'Don't you ever say that to me!' Eventually they were separated – and soon hugged and made up. But five minutes later, 'David was being dragged across the table again, with far more ferocity this time, with Lou screaming, 'I told you not to say that!' This time he really went for it and was raining blows on Bowie's head.' Reed was hustled out of the restaurant, and Bowie left sitting at the table, 'head in his hands… sobbing.' Jones suggested that Bowie had offered to produce another album for Reed, 'as long as he got himself clean and straightened himself out. Which Lou obviously didn't like.' This for the man who had helped Reed to his only significant chart success – a Top 30 album and a Top 10 hit, for a song about transgenderism, fellatio and casual prostitution, no less. We'll put it down to coincidence that Bowie went into a studio less than six months later to begin recording Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps). (He said he'd got the title from a Cornflakes packet.) Others, though, would go further. When writer Howard Sounes approached the former Velvets' manager Paul Morrissey for his biography of Reed, the director of Andy Warhol's Flesh and Trash suggested that the book should be titled 'The Hateful B—h' or 'The Worst Person Who Ever Lived', if it were to reflect its subject truly. As for Jones, who got into a scuffle with Bowie that same evening, when the singer realised he was a 'f---ing journalist', he was at least spared the sort of scorn that Reed regularly directed towards the press, usually delivered in a bored monotone that was at least in part borrowed from Andy Warhol, especially when responding to inane questions. 'Would it be right to call your music gutter rock?' he was asked by an Australian journalist on arrival in Sydney in 1974. 'Gutter rock?' Reed responds. 'Oh yeah.' In the infamous Lester Bangs interview for Creem in 1975, though, it is the writer who appears both rude and petulant, and further takes advantage of having the last (printed) word by launching a tirade of (written) abuse at the artist and his work after the fact. On his 1978 album, Live: Take No Prisoners, recorded at the Bottom Line in New York, Reed let the press have it with both barrels. After giving a shout-out to Bruce Springsteen in the audience, who'd added his voice to the album cut of Street Hassle eight months earlier, Reed turns on critics Robert Christgau of the Village Voice and John Rockwell of the New York Times, mocking the venerable New York newspapers' tradition of calling him 'Mr Reed' – 'F--- you, I don't need you to tell me that I'm good.' Christgau, meanwhile, was an 'anal retentive… nice little boxes, B-plus. Imagine working for a f---in' year and you got a B-plus from an a---hole on the Village Voice? You don't have to take this s---. You don't have to f---ing talk to these f---ing journalists. They're negative for free, in the best seats.' Elsewhere, he gave an insight into his psyche before playing Street Hassle, launching into a burst of guitar feedback in response to heckling from the audience. 'That's how Metal Machine was born by the way,' he says. 'I can drown you out. Go on, leave if you don't like it.' Some did like it, even Metal Machine Music. Paul Morley launched a defence of it in The Observer in 2010, calling it an 'intense collision of surreal object, hate letter, emotional outburst, poetic assault, bubblegum serialism, artistic bombshell' and more, suggesting that if it had inspired bands like Throbbing Gristle and Sonic Youth, it must be doing something right. Reed himself suggested that one could hear aspects of Beethoven in it and pronounced that 'It's the only record I know that attacks the listener.' Of course, Reed's uncompromising approach to his career ultimately proved to be a lucrative decision – with income from publishing royalties ensuring his estate was worth more than $30m after his death, aged 71, in 2013. We're not sure quite how much of that was for Metal Machine Music, but perhaps it would be wise to bear in mind something else that Reed said to the crowd on Take No Prisoners. 'I do Lou Reed better than anybody. Enough attitude to kill every person in Jersey.'
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
State ponders role in getting people to drive less
BOSTON (SHNS) – The idea of aligning the state's transportation plans with its targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, including by making a specific plan to decrease the amount Bay Staters drive, was met Wednesday with skepticism from a key senator who worried it might actually complicate matters and be especially burdensome for rural parts of Massachusetts. 'Its purpose is to ensure that our multi-million dollar transportation plans, broadly speaking, get us where we need to go on climate change and reducing vehicle miles. Colorado and Minnesota have adopted similar requirements, which have successfully reoriented their transportation plans toward a responsible balance of investment in highway, public transit and active transportation projects,' Senate Majority Leader Cynthia Creem said of her legislation. 'We could do the same thing here together.' The Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy Committee on Wednesday heard the bill (S 2246) Creem filed to require the Department of Transportation to set goals for reducing the number of statewide driving miles, which would then be part of the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs' consideration of sector-specific emission limits. The legislation would also stand up an interagency coordinating council to come up with 'a whole-of-government plan to reduce vehicle miles traveled and increase access to transportation options other than personal vehicles,' according to Creem's summary. Transportation is the sector that accounts for the greatest share of Massachusetts' greenhouse gas emissions, and Creem said the state's strategy for reducing those emissions 'has largely, although not exclusively, focused on electric vehicles.' Supporters said the environmental benefits of improved fuel economy and electric vehicle adoptions have largely been offset by a mostly steady rise in vehicle miles traveled; even though cars pollute less per mile, Americans are driving more miles than in previous decades. Creem said electric vehicles 'are certainly a major piece of the puzzle,' but cautioned against over-reliance on any single decarbonization strategy for the transportation sector. 'With the Trump administration rolling back vehicle emission standards and withholding funds from EV charging programs, and with congressional Republicans looking to repeal EV tax credits and derail state-level EV rules, now is the time to pursue new strategies, additional strategies, for reducing transportation emissions,' the Senate majority leader said. Two weeks ago, TUE Committee House Chair Rep. Mark Cusack said policymakers are reevaluating all of Massachusetts' climate and emissions mandates, plans and goals in light of changes in federal energy policy. Massachusetts state government has committed to reducing carbon emissions by at least 50% compared to 1990 baselines by 2030, by at least 75% by 2040 and by at least 85% by 2050, with tag-along policies to get the state to net-zero emissions by the middle of the century. The state also has numerous other mandates on the books, including around things like electric vehicles, and its long-range climate and energy plans acknowledge the need to reduce commuter vehicle miles driven. Sen. Michael Barrett, the Senate co-chair of the TUE Committee, raised with supporters of Creem's bill the question of 'whether we're layering too many slightly disparate initiatives, one on top of another, in a way that is, in fact, going to complicate rather than clarify steps that need to be taken.' Barrett pointed to transportation sector emission sublimits that are supposed to ratchet down over the coming decade and requirements for the MBTA to transition its bus fleet to be zero-emitting as examples that 'we do have a lot of provisions right now, enacted in either 2021-2022 or 2024, that correlate transportation spending and climate goals.' The Lexington Democrat also noted what he called 'an unintended and subtle bias against rural Massachusetts,' where transit options are far more limited and people often live further from their workplaces. 'I understand that one can easily imagine that EVs, over time, will reduce the number of polluting vehicle miles traveled. But why we would want to start to pressure Massachusetts to reduce all miles traveled, polluting and non-polluting alike, does raise the question of what someone is to do in a place where one has to travel a long distance to a construction job or to any other source of employment,' Barrett said. The senator added later, 'One of the questions I'm going to carry with me away from today's hearing is whether we really want to focus on reducing vehicle miles traveled, or whether that's too crude and somewhat off the point, and whether instead we want to reduce internal combustion engine vehicle miles traveled.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Boston Globe
10-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
John Peck, underground cartoonist known as The Mad Peck, dies at 82
'To me, he would be a Top 10 cartoonist, a Top 10 DJ, a Top 10 rock critic,' Kenton said. Advertisement Mr. Peck illustrated one of the first scholarly works on the importance of comic books. And he was perhaps the first cartoonist to write record reviews in four-panel comic-strip form. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up He also wrote an academic paper in 1983 with literary commentator Michael Macrone about the evolution of television; its title, 'How J.R. Got Out of the Air Force and What the Derricks Mean,' playfully referenced phallic symbolism in the oil-soaked prime-time soap opera 'Dallas.' Mr. Peck once called it his 'crowning achievement.' His comic-strip music critiques appeared in Fusion, Creem, Rolling Stone, and other music publications, and in The Village Voice. He worked in a retro style repurposed from the 1940s and '50s and wrote with sardonic humor ('Is There Life After Meatloaf?'), while offering trustworthy criticism. 'As far as I know, he was the first to do it,' Kenton said. 'Some people were drawing cartoons with people from the Grateful Dead in it, but John was reviewing the records. He wasn't just making a joke.' Advertisement Peter Wolf, former lead singer of the J. Geils Band, for whom Mr. Peck designed a T-shirt that became the group's logo, said in an interview: 'I can't think of anybody else who did it, that 'Ripley's Believe It or Not!' style. For me, he was an original.' A 1971 J. Geils Band T-shirt designed by Providence artist "The Mad Peck" (aka John Peck). David Bieber Archives Mr. Peck also made concert posters for Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin and, most notably, for the final concert in the United States by British supergroup Cream, in Providence in November 1968. The poster featured the band's name in a faux advertisement for unfiltered Camel cigarettes, which Mr. Peck smoked for 50 years. The Providence Journal reported that one of the posters sold for more than $3,000 in 2016. 'To me he was an important figure of that era,' cartoonist and illustrator Drew Friedman said. 'I thought it was fascinating how he was going back and forth between modern times and the past.' In Providence, Mr. Peck was most popular for a noirish 1978 poster commenting on the city, which at first seemed snarly but was ultimately sanguine. It remains popular. The poster's comic-book-style panels, referencing actual street names, read, in part: 'And Friendship is a one way street. Rich folks live on Power Street. But most of us live off Hope.' Mr. Peck illustrated 'Comix: A History of Comic Books in America' (1971), written by a friend, historian Les Daniels, which was among the first serious appraisals of the subject. And, in an embrace of low art and a critique of what he viewed as the snobbery of television criticism, Mr. Peck became a TV critic himself. Advertisement In a 1987 interview with Terry Gross of NPRs 'Fresh Air,' Mr. Peck said he believed that all forms of popular culture were connected: 'When you get down there on the street level or on the consumer level, people don't really make the distinctions between one medium and the other.' In that same interview, Mr. Peck mused about the cultural absurdities and contradictions of television. While humans worried about too much exposure in front of the screen, he dryly noted, the pig named Arnold Ziffel, a porcine couch potato seen on the 1960s sitcom 'Green Acres,' was held in 'very high esteem' for watching TV constantly, 'because watching television is such a breakthrough for an animal.' Mr. Peck's lack of widespread recognition was partly by choice. He sometimes wore disguises and claimed not to have allowed himself to be photographed for half a century. Wolf, who became a friend, described Mr. Peck affectionately as a phantom in a hat and trench coat, pale and with nicotine-stained fingers, who 'always seemed to appear out of the dark end of the street.' When Friedman included an illustration of Mr. Peck in his book 'Maverix and Lunatix: Icons of Underground Comix' (2022), he first had to figure out what he looked like, whether that was his real name, and whether he was a single person or a group of people. 'He was the Keyser Söze of underground comics,' Friedman said, referring to the evasive character at the center of the 1995 movie 'The Usual Suspects.' Mr. Peck acknowledged to The Providence Journal in 2016 that he worked with a clip-art ethos of 'don't draw what you can trace, and don't trace what you can paste,' and that he had 'an inability to draw anything more complex than psychedelic hand lettering.' Advertisement His ideas relied heavily on retooling the work of Matt Baker, who was among the first Black cartoonists to gain success in the 1940s and '50s, whose characters included scantily dressed female crime fighters and who also worked on romance comics. Such extensive borrowing 'probably put him at odds with some of the more serious underground cartoonists,' said Steven Heller, co-chair emeritus of the Master of Fine Arts Design program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. 'In the broader picture, now that we're talking about history, it mattered.' John Frederick Peck was born Nov. 16, 1942, in Brooklyn and grew up in Connecticut. His father, Frank Peck, was assistant superintendent of public schools in Fairfield, Conn., and then in Greenwich. His mother, Eleanor Mary (Delavina) Peck, was a teacher. Mr. Peck came to cartooning via an unconventional path, after receiving a degree in electrical engineering in 1967 from Brown University. Engineering was a career choice more his parents' wish than his own; Mr. Peck instead went underground, forming a publishing collective known as Mad Peck Studios, whose cartoons, rock posters, humorous advertisements, and reviews were anthologized in 1987. As a disc jockey with the moniker Dr. Oldie, Mr. Peck, who referred to himself as 'the dean of the University of Musical Perversity,' hosted a weekly radio show in Providence called 'Giant Juke Box' for more than a decade until 1983. He played doo-wop, R&B, early rock 'n' roll, and novelty songs, and he became an early proponent of mixtapes. Advertisement Mr. Peck leaves his sisters. His marriage to Vicky (Oliver) Peck, a humorist who had helped create his cartoons and who went by the comic persona I.C. Lotz., ended in the late 1970s. Mr. Peck scoured flea markets, yard sales, record stores, and discount emporiums for records and other cultural ephemera, which occupied two floors of his house, a cluttered domicile that did not always have heat or running water. His record library was said to include roughly 30,000 singles and several thousand albums. Some might have considered him a hoarder, but his friends called him an archivist, because his collections were organized and labeled. 'For a guy who smoked a lot of pot, he didn't forget anything,' said Jeff Heiser, who co-hosted Mr. Peck's radio program for five years. 'He had this stuff down cold.' This article originally appeared in
New York Times
06-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
John Peck, Underground Cartoonist Known as The Mad Peck, Dies at 82
John Peck, a cultural omnivore known as The Mad Peck whose dryly humorous style as an underground cartoonist, artist, critic, disc jockey and record collector was accompanied by an ornate eccentricity, died on March 15 in Providence, R.I. He was 82. The cause of his death, in a hospital, was a ruptured aneurysm in his aorta, said his sisters, Marie Peck and Lois Barber. Mr. Peck was not as well known or acclaimed as underground cartoonists like Robert Crumb or Art Spiegelman. That was perhaps in part because his interests were so broad, Gary Kenton, who edited him at Fusion and Creem magazines from the late 1960s into the '70s, said in an interview. 'To me, he would be a Top 10 cartoonist, a Top 10 D.J., a Top 10 rock critic,' Mr. Kenton said. Mr. Peck illustrated one of the first scholarly works on the importance of comic books. And he was perhaps the first cartoonist to write record reviews in four-panel comic-strip form. He also wrote an academic paper in 1983 with the literary commentator Michael Macrone about the evolution of television; its title, 'How J.R. Got Out of the Air Force and What the Derricks Mean,' playfully referenced phallic symbolism in the oil-soaked prime-time soap opera 'Dallas.' Mr. Peck once called it his 'crowning achievement.' His comic-strip music critiques appeared in Fusion, Creem, Rolling Stone and other music publications, and in The Village Voice. He worked in a retro style repurposed from the 1940s and '50s and wrote with sardonic humor ('Is There Life After Meatloaf?'), while offering trustworthy criticism. 'As far as I know, he was the first to do it,' Mr. Kenton said. 'Some people were drawing cartoons with people from the Grateful Dead in it, but John was reviewing the records. He wasn't just making a joke.' Peter Wolf, the former lead singer of the J. Geils Band, for whom Mr. Peck designed a T-shirt that became the group's logo, said in an interview: 'I can't think of anybody else who did it, that 'Ripley's Believe It or Not!' style. For me, he was an original.' Mr. Peck also made concert posters for Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin and, most notably, for the final concert in the United States by the British supergroup Cream, in Providence in November 1968. The poster featured the band's name in a faux advertisement for unfiltered Camel cigarettes, which Mr. Peck smoked for 50 years. The Providence Journal reported that one of the posters sold for more than $3,000 in 2016. 'To me he was an important figure of that era,' the cartoonist and illustrator Drew Friedman said. 'I thought it was fascinating how he was going back and forth between modern times and the past.' In Providence, Mr. Peck was most popular for a noirish 1978 poster commenting on the city, which at first seemed snarly but was ultimately sanguine. It remains popular. The poster's comic-book-style panels, referencing actual street names, read, in part: 'And Friendship is a one way street. Rich folks live on Power Street. But most of us live off Hope.' Mr. Peck illustrated 'Comix: A History of Comic Books in America' (1971), written by a friend, the historian Les Daniels, which was among the first serious appraisals of the subject. And, in an embrace of low art and a critique of what he viewed as the snobbery of television criticism, Mr. Peck became a TV critic himself. In a 1987 interview with Terry Gross of NPRs 'Fresh Air,' Mr. Peck said he believed that all forms of popular culture were connected: 'When you get down there on the street level or on the consumer level, people don't really make the distinctions between one medium and the other.' In that same interview, Mr. Peck mused about the cultural absurdities and contradictions of television. While humans worried about too much exposure in front of the screen, he dryly noted, the pig named Arnold Ziffel, a porcine couch potato seen on the 1960s sitcom 'Green Acres,' was held in 'very high esteem' for watching TV constantly, 'because watching television is such a breakthrough for an animal.' Mr. Peck's lack of widespread recognition was partly by choice. He sometimes wore disguises and claimed not to have allowed himself to be photographed for half a century. Mr. Wolf, who became a friend, described Mr. Peck affectionately as a phantom in a hat and trench coat, pale and with nicotine-stained fingers, who 'always seemed to appear out of the dark end of the street.' When Mr. Friedman included an illustration of Mr. Peck in his book 'Maverix and Lunatix: Icons of Underground Comix' (2022), he first had to figure out what Mr. Peck looked like, whether that was his real name, and whether he was a single person or a group of people. 'He was the Keyser Söze of underground comics,' Mr. Friedman said, referring to the evasive character at the center of the 1995 movie 'The Usual Suspects.' Mr. Peck acknowledged to The Providence Journal in 2016 that he worked with a clip-art ethos of 'don't draw what you can trace, and don't trace what you can paste,' and that he had 'an inability to draw anything more complex than psychedelic hand lettering.' His ideas relied heavily on retooling the work of Matt Baker, who was among the first Black cartoonists to gain success in the 1940s and '50s, whose characters included scantily dressed female crime fighters and who also worked on romance comics. Such extensive borrowing 'probably put him at odds with some of the more serious underground cartoonists,' said Steven Heller, co-chairman emeritus of the Master of Fine Arts Design program at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. 'In the broader picture, now that we're talking about history, it mattered.' John Frederick Peck was born on Nov. 16, 1942, in Brooklyn and grew up in Connecticut. His father, Frank Peck, was assistant superintendent of public schools in Fairfield, Conn., and later held a similar position in Greenwich. His mother, Eleanor Mary (Delavina) Peck, was a teacher. Mr. Peck came to cartooning via an unconventional path, after receiving a degree in electrical engineering in 1967 from Brown University in Providence. Engineering was a career choice more his parents' wish than his own; Mr. Peck instead went underground, forming a publishing collective known as Mad Peck Studios, whose cartoons, rock posters, humorous advertisements and reviews were anthologized in 1987. As a disc jockey with the moniker Dr. Oldie, Mr. Peck, who referred to himself as 'the dean of the University of Musical Perversity,' hosted a weekly radio show in Providence called 'Giant Juke Box' for more than a decade until 1983. He played doo-wop, R&B, early rock 'n' roll and novelty songs, and he became an early proponent of mixtapes. He also partnered for decades with a friend, Jeff Heiser — who also co-hosted Mr. Peck's radio program for five years — in organizing conventions for record collectors. Mr. Peck's sisters are his only immediate survivors. His marriage to Vicky (Oliver) Peck, a humorist who had helped create his cartoons and who went by the comic persona I.C. Lotz., ended in the late 1970s. Mr. Peck scoured flea markets, yard sales, record stores and discount emporiums for records and other cultural ephemera, which occupied two floors of his house, a cluttered domicile that did not always have heat or running water. His record library was said to include roughly 30,000 singles and several thousand albums. Some might have considered him a hoarder, but his friends called him an archivist, because his collections were organized and labeled. 'For a guy who smoked a lot of pot, he didn't forget anything,' Mr. Heiser said. 'He had this stuff down cold.'
