Punkobit: Chuck Biscuits

Charles Montgomery - better known as Chuck Biscuits - has died.

His drumming in DOA helped create the sub genre Hardcore. His energetic battering of drums took him through a number of Vancouver bands before he moved to California. Arriving in 1982, he started a five-month spell with Black Flag before moving through another large number of stools - Circle Jerks and Weirdos included - and, eventually, joining up with Glenn Danzig. Biscuits drummed with Danzig for four albums, until arguments over money led him to quit.

Charlie would then drift through some more acts - Run DMC calling when they decided they needed a human dynamo in place of a human beat box - before winding up in Social Distortion. He joined up with them shortly before the release of White Light, White Heat, White Trash; he left at the end of the last century.

His family announced his death in a short statement:

“In response to the inquires, thank you for all the support. Chuck did not survive his battle with throat cancer. He passed surrounded by his family on 10/24/09."

Chuck Biscuits was 44.

UPDATE: Chuck Biscuits is still 44, and he's not dead. Turns out this was all a Whigfield, as Brooklyn Vegan explains:

Though I didn't completely realize it at the time of my own hasty posting, James's Chuck Biscuits obituary was THE source of it all. Before I re-posted his words I had read about Chuck's death - in addition to at the sources mentioned above, in the BrooklynVegan comments, and was told about it via an IM, and saw that someone had updated Wikipedia with his death info (reliable, I know), and noticed via Google that Punk News had even put a "-2009" after his name and date of birth.

Apparently, the original post from James Greene Jr was made in good faith - he's been the subject of a long, elaborate and cruel practical joke.

Has anyone ever lied to you for six months about being a terminally ill hero of your musical youth? It's fucking weird. You think I wasn't devastated when I read the e-mail the other day that announced his "death?" That's why I wrote this blog in the first place. I wanted to give CB the obit I knew he deserved. I knew there'd be source questions, but what was I supposed to do, e-mail his "wife" back and be like, "Hey, can you send me pics of the body?" I had no suspicions. I thought I had this shit on lock down. Who would lie to a NOBODY blogger about this kind of thing for so long?

It's easy to attack me in hindsight, but again - this had been going on since May. Who the fuck lies about being a dying Chuck Biscuits for half a year? Are my friends/enemies smart enough to hack enough related e-mail accounts to perpetrate something like this? I just want to know how it happened.

SXSW 2009: Enter Shikari, pursued by fans

The beautiful-and-discerning Enter Shikari couldn't have had a better time at SXSW if they had been covered in cream frosting and jam: NME reports queues round the block as they played Emos.

Also having a good SXSW is Graham Coxon; having a bad SXSW are AT&T, as the combination of SXSWi geeks and SXSW music hipsters brought a slew of iPhones to Austin, taking down the only network on which they work.

Rolling Stone has been thrilled by Circle Jerks and the Dicks:

When the Dicks hit the stage — a little chubbier and grayer than they were in the ’80s — pot-bellied lead singer Gary Floyd offered these words of thanks: “For me, to thank the little people is very easy.”

Rolling Stone is having a go at cultural institutions for getting flabby and grey? Mote-and-beam, surely?

Amongst the kindaexclusives gathered between sets and Mexican food, the LA Times discovered that Devo are about "half-way through" their next album. Since they've already had 19 years to work on it, we'll expect that in 2028, then.

And the Associated Press spoke to Big Boi about his debut solo album. What's it going to sound like, Mr. Boi?

"They can't put Big Boi in a category. Rock, funk, blues, soul, gospel — some of everything."

That's a problem, though, as in that case the record shops are just going to have to pile the CDs in the middle of the floor. Unless they have a section marked 'Hip hop acts who think that putting a few guitars on the record makes them into Jonathan Miller'.