A portrait of the late Amy Winehouse by Lee Bermejo. The illustration was done for Italian magazine XL and their column called ‘Dark Side.’
 
If you are a fan of comic books, artist Lee Bermejo‘s name is probably familiar to you. His work has been widely featured in modern adaptations of classic superhero comics such as Superman and Batman published during the 2000s and beyond for DC. Bermejo has many respectable accomplishments in his pencil box including an IGN Comics Award for his 2008 graphic novel Joker which also spent some time on the New York Times best-sellers list.

In 2013 the mostly self-taught artist was recruited by Italian magazine XL to do some illustration work for them. The concept, according to Bermejo, was to create images of famous musicians with superhero attributes. The column written by Ezio Guaitamacchi was called Dark Side in which Guaitamacci would detail the too-soon deaths of famous musicians, including many members of the so-called “27 Club” such as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Amy Winehouse (pictured at the top of this post). Bermejo’s images are profound as they often depict his famous subjects in physical states not unlike the circumstances of their actual deaths. In addition to his poignant portraits for XL, Bermejo also did imaginative portraits of other music legends still with us such as Black Sabbath and Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses. I find it morbidly amusing Bermejo chose to illustrate Axl lying in a coffin wide awake with two pistols, adjacent to a skull with a top hat which presumably once belonged to his pal Slash—who, by the way, is still very much alive.

I’ve posted Bermejo’s illustrations for XL as well as a few others below. Some are slightly NSFW.
 

John Lennon for XL.
 

Johnny Cash for XL.
 

Syd Barrett for XL.
 
More after the jump…

The late Jeff Buckley has a message for you. NOT.
 
I’m going to be brutally honest with you right now—I am both intrigued and deeply confused by my recent discovery of blog entry by an alleged psychic medium who calls herself “Divine Jacqueline.” The entry, which was posted back in 2011 claims to contain messages from the great beyond from musician Jeff Buckley. If you recall, Jeff died at the way too young age of 31 after drowning in the Mississippi River in 1996. I’m a huge fan of Buckley and had the good fortune to see him live just before his untimely death in an intimate setting in Boston, and to this day the experience ranks as one of the most powerful performances I’ve ever seen. While I’d love to believe that Jeff Buckley is communicating with us while he’s chilling out with other members of rock’s heavenly choir, I simply don’t. And most of the stuff that Divine Jacqueline insists is the word of Jeff is, as you might imagine,  straight-up bizarre and more than difficult to swallow. Mostly because I’m shit-sure that Jeff fucking Buckley would ever admit to liking the song “My Sacrifice” by Creed. Because nobody really actually likes that song (alive or dead) or Creed for that matter. Hell, even Creed probably hates it. And that’s a fact.

According to Divine Jacqueline, Buckley now goes by the name “Scott Moorhead” which is a combination of his stepfather’s last name of Moorhead and his middle name which he went by when he was a child. Of the many, many wild statements the Divine Jacqueline makes on her Blogspot site, I have extracted a few of the stranger ones that she has “received” from Buckley about how he spends his infinite time in the afterworld. You might want to lie down while reading what follows as I found it both helpful, as well as necessary:

Jeff says that “What Is And What Should Never Be” is Led Zeppelins’ greatest masterpiece. In fact, Buckley wishes he wrote it himself [DON’T WE ALL?].

Two of Buckley’s closest companions on the other side are author James Joyce and Edith Piaf. While he was still alive, he routinely received “messages” from other deceased musicians like guitarist Randy Rhoads, John Bonham, and Jim Morrison. Jeff also hangs around with musician Roger Voudouris and says that we should all pick up the singer/songwriter’s 1979 album Radio Dreams.

Jeff enjoys “reaching out” to people on earth like actor Brad Pitt. Though he doesn’t communicate with them per se, he just likes to “inspire” them. He also likes to connect to those on earth he had past lives with by phone. Though he “hangs up” when you answer because he was really just expecting to hear your outgoing message on the answering machine, and didn’t think you’d actually pick-up the phone. He also needs us to know that he will not speak to anyone (including psychics) through Ouija boards or seances. So quit it.

Jeff loves the Creed song “My Sacrifice” and often sings it himself these days.

Jeff Buckley LOVES Kate Bush! Who knew?

Okay, I can dig the idea that Jeff Buckley is spending time with Edith Piaf and enjoys the musical stylings of Kate Bush but man, the insinuation that Jeff Buckley is up there in Heaven singing a fucking Creed song is an insult to Buckley and to people with functional ears.

Continues after the jump…

 
It was May 30, 1997 and I was on my way home after closing the bar I managed in downtown Manhattan. I made my usual stop at Gem Spa to pick up the early morning editions of The New York Post and Daily News before heading to Veselka for a quick late night breakfast. Sitting in the restaurant and flipping through the Post I came upon something that crushed my heart - Jeff Buckley had died, drowned in the Wolf River in Memphis. I wept. He was 31.

Buckley showed tremendous promise and I thought he was going to be huge. His debut album Grace was a stunner—both epic and tender, huge and intimate. I had seen him in concert several times (St. Ann’s was otherworldly) and every performance was sublime. At Irving Plaza, my teenage daughter and my wife were totally smitten by his angelic good looks, heavenly voice and powerful presence—his appeal went beyond age, fashion or demographic. Buckley could channel Robert Plant and Edith Piaf all in one song. He really was an amazingly beautiful soul and tremendously gifted artist. In my rock and roll world he’s left a void that will certainly never be filled and I can only dream of what might have been. His musical output was small but what there is of it will endure and seduce generations to come. Buckley may have died but his art is immortal.

On this day, his date of birth, I share this BBC documentary with you and some fine live footage.

Jeff Buckley - Everybody Here Wants You was produced in 2002 and contains archival footage of Jeff performing live as well as interviews with family, friends and musicians that include Chrissie Hynde, Gary Lucas, Jimmy Page and Patti Smith.
 

 
Buckley live in Providence R.I., 1995:
 

 
Over the weekend, when the sad news spread about the passing of Tommy Ramone, a really touching image circulated online, showing the Ramones debut LP, then the same cover with Joey, Johnny, and Dee Dee Photoshopped out, and then, at last, Tommy removed as well. Dangerous Minds even shared it on our Facebook page.
 

 
The middle image, of Tommy standing alone in front of that iconic brick wall, seems to have come from a Tumblr called “Live! (I See Dead People),” which is devoted entirely to skillfully removing deceased musicians from their LP covers—sort of like “Garfield Minus Garfield,” but with a more serious intent. The subjects range from cult figures like Nick Drake to canonical rock stars like Nirvana and The Doors, and the results are often quite poignant. The blog hasn’t been updated in almost three years, so it seems unlikely the artists behind this project, Jean-Marie Delbes and Hatim El Hihi, will re-do that Ramones cover. Indeed, their Morrison Hotel still features Ray Manzarek, who passed on a little over a year ago.
 

New York Dolls, s/t
 

Ol Dirty Bastard, Return to the 36 Chambers
 

Nick Drake, Bryter Layter
 

The Who, Odds & Sods
 

Johnny Thunders, So Alone
 

George Harrison, All Things Must Pass
 

Nirvana, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
 

Jeff Buckley, Grace
 

The Doors, Morrison Hotel
 

John Lennon & Yoko Ono, Double Fantasy
 

The Clash, s/t
 

Elvis Presley, s/t
 

 
Hat-tip to Derf for this find.

From the Guardian, Elizabeth Fraser speaks about her 18-year tenure in the groundbreaking band Cocteau Twins, and how time has not been good to her memories of the group. She also discusses her tumultuous relationship with Jeff Buckley.

The Cocteau Twins had been apart for seven years, the mystique they had attained during their lifetime gradually growing and their influence spreading, when the announcement came that they were to reform. The world was told they would be headlining the 2005 Coachella festival in California, and would follow that with a major tour. According to bassist Simon Raymonde, the band stood to benefit to the tune of ?Ǭ