Former Weezer Bassist Mikey Welsh Found Dead

Over the weekend while we were basking in the warm glow of an exciting Hokie victory, I was busy missing the news that former Weezer bassist, artist and generally cool dude Mikey Welsh died in Chicago Saturday at the age of 40.

He was actually in town to see Weezer play. Welsh had finally begun to reconcile with his former band mates and even joined them on stage once again earlier this summer.

While cause of death has yet to be established, anyone who knows anything about Welsh's past has to worry that it was intentional.

Welsh's exit from Weezer was brought about mostly because he had a nervous breakdown hastened by the stresses of touring, an undiagnosed medical condition and heavy drug use.

Despite only recording one album during his time with the band, 2001's eponymous "Green Album", Welsh was there for Weezer's big comeback following the hiatus after the release of 1996's Pinkerton.

After leaving the band, Welsh dedicated himself to another artistic pursuit, painting and carved out a unique niche with his colorful works seen everywhere from Burton snowboards to skate park walls.

Welsh gained success as a painter, and had begun interacting with many fans (including myself) of his art and music, especially over the last few months on Facebook.

He began sharing intimate stories of his time in Weezer and gave some interesting insights into the life of the band during one of its most popular eras like:

so there i was... at a california pizza kitchen with rivers. "so...would you like to be in weezer?" or something along those lines. that was the question that was presented to me by r.c. the one i had been waiting to hear since i arrived in los angeles several days earlier.. "yes. i would", i think i stammered out.. i had been playing with the three members of weezer for a few days or so. but we d...idn’t play any weezer songs.. at least all the songs i knew so well. i had flown out expecting to shred away on "getchoo", or maybe "say it ain't so", or any of the tunes off of blue and pinkerton... but that wasn’t what rivers had in mind.. instead, we ended up jamming out on songs i had been playing with rivers for almost a year... "rosemary", "prettiest girl in the whole wide world"... these were songs i loved dearly... but man, i wanted to play the old stuff.. anyways, I accepted the offer to join the band.

It's a sad loss to be sure, but this is the first "famous" death that has really bothered me. Mikey was the bassist in my favorite band when I "found" them in 2001. He was funny, cool and had the perfect vibe for a decidedly un-cool, awkward band.

Also, he gave the funniest interview I can recall with drummer Pat Wilson. I think I posted it recently but it deserves another look.

Rest well Mikey.

It's Easy

Well, we've once again essentially let the blog die. It happens periodically, especially in the summer months as the weather is conducive to general tomfoolery of the outdoor variety.

We're coming up on wedding week so Brian is fairly swamped. That also means that we'll have strange coverage from abroad on the event. Should be quite interesting.

As a stopgap proving that I continue to breathe, I give you an acoustic Weezer jam from some old AOL Sessions.

This is a Brian Bell penned song called, "It's Easy". It's a cool little jam complete with drums from an oddly baret-clad Rivers Cuomo and drummer Pat Wilson has a nice little extended solo on guitar.

Brian Bell takes lead guitar and lead vocals while bassist Scott Sharp supplies some smooth background vocals along with Cuomo.

Enjoy this and sit tight. This week should have some truly unusual coverage of all kinds of things. No hollow promises this time. Honest.

Represent: Unofficial song of U.S. Soccer

It's not too surprising that soccer nut Rivers Cuomo and his band Weezer are the ones behind this song. Rivers has had a long love affair with soccer and has written songs on the subject of the World Cup before, this time however it may help to fuel an historic run.

The U.S. team was blaring the song in the locker room following their stunning 1-0 win over Algeria when President Clinton came in to talk to the guys.

Excitement abounds. Go U.S.! Beat Ghana!!!

Song Of The Day: It's Easy

We've been very sports-centric as of late and I've been hearing grumblings from the masses. In respect to your wishes, I bring you a song from Weezer.

This was one of the tunes written for their 2008 release, Weezer, known as the Red Album. It was written by guitarist Brian Bell as one of the first songs to feature a lead vocalist other than Rivers Cuomo.

This is a nice little acoustic rendition done for AOL. It features Rivers on drums in a beret, nice vocals by Bell, cool harmonies by bassist Scott Shriner and a nifty little guitar solo by drummer Pat Wilson.

Song Of The Day- Pixies

You might not know of the Pixies directly, but trust me, you know them.

Active in the late eighties and early nineties, the Pixies were pioneers, essentially birthing the alternative rock boom of the early to mid-nineties. The Pixies are credited with being the first to use wide dynamics and start-stop timing, both of which defined the coming alt boom.

Pixies verses are typicially subdued and restrained, while the choruses are loud and feature wailing guitars and vocals.

Two of the most obvious examples of their influence are Weezer and Nirvana. Rivers Cuomo took the quiet-loud-quiet dynamics truly to heart and most classic Weezer songs have those crunchy guitars over the chorus. The perfect example from the weez is "Say It Ain't So", released in 1994.

Kurt Cobain said in a January of 1994 Rolling Stone interview that he was trying to write a song in the style of the Pixies when he penned "Smells Like Teen Spirit".

I was trying to write the ultimate pop song. I was basically trying to rip off the Pixies. I have to admit it. When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily that I should have been in that band— or at least a Pixies cover band. We used their sense of dynamics, being soft and quiet and then loud and hard.

Clearly, the Pixies were incredibly influential and thankfully, finally reunited in 2004 after an 11-year hiatus.

The official song of the day is "Velouria" off their 1990 release Bossanova.

This video was filmed when they were offered to play on the British show Top of The Pops. There was a rule in place that only singles that had videos could be played on the show so the band made a quick video.

The video shows the band running down a rock quarry. It took 23 seconds of footage for the band to reach the camera and they then slowed that down to last for the whole song. Brilliant.

Song Of The Day- Weezer

This is a strange one. Weezer played a couple of random promotional shows last week. This is from a T-Mobile show promoting the release of some kind of new Sidekick product (Rivers mentions both in the song's intro).

I would first like to state that the actual versions of both songs Weezer covers in this video both suck. "Kids" by MGMT and "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga are both terrible. I hadn't heard either song but I knew they were popular. I had to check them out and I was appalled at how bad both of them are.

The keyboard/synth riff in the MGMT song however is actually pretty decent if not exceedingly simple. I think it's pretty catchy and the "Poker Face" part by Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo is comical here. It's cool to see him enjoying himself and sans the moderately creepy mustache.

Some interesting notes to me at least: Rivers went guitar-less at this show, giving drummer Patrick Wilson lead guitar duties, though everyone plays keys in this video.

That's Josh Freese back there on percussion helping out. Freese has played with a lot of groups including being a member of A Perfect Circle, Nine Inch Nails, The Vandals and Devo. He's a well known session player and has worked with countless others. No word on if he will join the band touring this summer but I think this was just a fun thing to do for all of them.

You never know with The Weezers though.

For some reason the width on this video is super widescreen, it was clearly filmed on one of these cell phone contraptions so it isn't in HD. Go here if you'd like to watch the wider version.

Song Of The Day

This song has been featured before, but this is a fresh live performance that is quite outrageous. "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations On a Shaker Hymn)" was performed live on Spike last night during their video game awards show by Weezer.

The vocals are great by all the band members (though I think the women's choir is a bit stiff throughout). Rivers Cuomo's strange cavorting about the stage is both crazed and inspired.

Gotta love the barefoot, white-suit wearing Cuomo, even if he isn't playing guitar.

The bald guy playing guitar in Rivers' place is Dave Kushner from Velvet Revolver. He and Weezer bassist Scott Shriner are apparently old friends.