Page 2 of 3 FirstFirst 123 LastLast
Results 26 to 50 of 57

Thread: R.I.P. Ric Ocasek (The Cars)

  1. #26
    Geriatric Anomaly progeezer's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Madison, WI
    Posts
    11,318
    Sad indeed. RIP

    It's rare that a musician so damned eccentric/quirky (which I always respected) still knew what would be both commercially successful and at the same time musically relevant (Ben Orr helped).

    Cars "Bye Bye Love" is a favorite tune of mine.
    "My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician, and to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference"

    President Harry S. Truman

  2. #27
    I echo what others have already said.. sad news.. first time I ever heard of The Cars we were in route to see Gentle Giant and they guy driving popped in a cassette of their first album and announce.. "This is New Wave".. catchy tunes.. never owned any of their albums but like others never turned them off when they came on the radio..

  3. #28
    Wow, his name popped up this morning in the L.A. Times crossword puzzle in my local newspaper. Coincidence??

  4. #29
    Estimated Prophet notallwhowander's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Coastal California
    Posts
    799
    Bummer, his music kinda sums up middle-school pool parties for me. So there is a serious wistfulness in his passing. R.I.P.
    Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world.

  5. #30
    Member
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Portland, OR, USA
    Posts
    1,865
    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Roth View Post
    From NPR:

    There is some confusion about Ocasek's age: The NYPD said that he was 75; public records list his age as 70 years old.
    At the beginning of the Cars, he might have chopped a few years off for rock 'n roll business reasons. In some sense he was a late bloomer, who'd been plugging along in the musical trenches for about half his life until he hit upon the sound and the line-up that succeeded. Punk/NewWave was young music; it wouldn't have helped his career for the public to know his actual age.

  6. #31
    Member Staun's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Milwaukee, WI
    Posts
    1,997
    Never thought of The Cars as being punk or new wave. Saw the Heartbeat City tour in Texas. RIP Ric!
    The older I get, the better I was.

  7. #32
    Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2019
    Location
    Stevens
    Posts
    78
    The Cars were an American original. One note in on any of their songs and you always knew who it was. My favorites are Panorama and Ric's Beatitude albums, which were the most arty.

  8. #33
    Member hippypants's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Texas
    Posts
    2,134
    Quote Originally Posted by Staun View Post
    Never thought of The Cars as being punk or new wave. RIP Ric!
    I'd agree somewhat. I think it was in the deadpan vocals similar to say The Talking Heads among others. When their first lp came out I thought it was the greatest. But with each new album I enjoyed them less and less. For me now, I don't think their sound has aged very well. I no longer own anything by them. RIP

  9. #34
    cunning linguist 3LockBox's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    hiding out in treetops, shouting out rude names
    Posts
    3,657
    Quote Originally Posted by hippypants View Post
    I'd agree somewhat. I think it was in the deadpan vocals similar to say The Talking Heads among others. When their first lp came out I thought it was the greatest. But with each new album I enjoyed them less and less
    I think their stage persona was quite deadpan as well, especially Ocasek and Orr. A friend of mine saw them in Memphis and said they played 90min with no encore. They barely acknowledge each other and didn't engage the audience at all.

    I still listen to those first two albums. I think they hold up very well but yeah, the later albums can be patchy. Their last album with Orr, Door to Door, smacked of contractual obligation.

    Time to give Todd Rundgren a call maybe.

  10. #35
    Quote Originally Posted by 3LockBox View Post
    Time to give Todd Rundgren a call maybe.
    Oh dear god, don't get Gruno started again...

  11. #36
    cunning linguist 3LockBox's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    hiding out in treetops, shouting out rude names
    Posts
    3,657
    Quote Originally Posted by aith01 View Post
    Oh dear god, don't get Gruno started again...
    I never understood Ocasek's vitriol toward TR on the matter. If I remember correctly it was Elliot Easton's idea to involve Rundgren. Not that I thought the New Cars was something I couldn't have lived without. It seemed, I dunno, beneath TR to be impersonating Orr in a cover band.

  12. #37
    Quote Originally Posted by 3LockBox View Post
    I never understood Ocasek's vitriol toward TR on the matter. If I remember correctly it was Elliot Easton's idea to involve Rundgren. Not that I thought the New Cars was something I couldn't have lived without. It seemed, I dunno, beneath TR to be impersonating Orr in a cover band.
    You're correct; Rundgren was a hired gun for that tour. And I'm in total agreement with everything you said here.

  13. #38
    Member Guitarplyrjvb's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Northeast Pennsylvania USA
    Posts
    1,114
    The Cars had some great pop music. The icing on their cake was Elliot Easton. I think that guy is a great, tasteful guitarist who can say more in a few bars than most of his peers.

  14. #39
    Quote Originally Posted by 3LockBox View Post
    I think their stage persona was quite deadpan as well, especially Ocasek and Orr. A friend of mine saw them in Memphis and said they played 90min with no encore. They barely acknowledge each other and didn't engage the audience at all.

    I still listen to those first two albums. I think they hold up very well but yeah, the later albums can be patchy. Their last album with Orr, Door to Door, smacked of contractual obligation.

    Time to give Todd Rundgren a call maybe.
    I have heard from other people that they were one of the worst live bands. I guess they just didn't enjoy touring?

  15. #40
    ALL ACCESS Gruno's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    Dio, Alabama
    Posts
    3,167


    This has been very difficult for me. As far as music goes, this hits hard. Similar to the passings of Kevin Gilbert and Tim Kelly (Slaughter.) Yeah, I can't believe the impact it has had on me. I'm just not ready. The below has helped.


    ===============================

    Paulina Porizkova Remembers Ric Ocasek’s ‘Incredible Gentleness'

    “When he looked at you and smiled, it was like, ‘Oh, my God, he smiled at me! The sun came out — it’s amazing!'” Ocasek’s widow says
    By David Browne

    Starting in the late Seventies, few rockers were as visually iconic as the Cars’ Ric Ocasek, who died on September 15th of natural causes; he was 75. Equally iconic was Ocasek’s longtime wife, Paulina Porizkova, the Czech-born model who met Ocasek on the set of the Cars’ “Drive” video in 1984.

    The two married five years later, although Porizkova announced last year that the couple had separated in 2017. With their two sons, Porizkova was helping tend to Ocasek after a recent surgery, and it was she who first discovered Ocasek’s body at their townhouse in New York’s Gramercy Park. Earlier this week, Porizkova spoke with Rolling Stone about Ocasek’s life, death, and recent years.



    I always said Ric looked like an upside-down exclamation mark. A lot of people found that really forbidding and found him intimidating, which he could very much be. As a person, he could be very aloof and sort of withdrawn. You could be intimidated by his height, thinness, black-clad persona, sunglasses, and all that.

    But he had an incredible gentleness about him when you got to know him. If he pushed his sunglasses onto the bridge of his nose and you saw his turquoise eyes, people would know. He had the most beautiful colored eyes, which really surprised people because people often did not see his eyes. And when he looked at you and smiled, it was like, “Oh, my God, he smiled at me! The sun came out — it’s amazing!”

    Cars music amuses me endlessly, like when people sing a song like “Let the Good Times Roll” unironically. Did they pay attention to the lyrics? Do you know what you’re singing? These are not happy, cheerful lyrics. The music had the element and the pop and the simplicity and musicality of Buddy Holly, who of course was a major hero of Ric’s, but lyrically, Ric was much starker. He was the guy who liked sweet and dark.

    His decision to leave the Cars [right before he and Porizkova were married] was really a decision to disband the Cars. At that stage, he felt hemmed in creatively. He had been sort of the dictator of a very small country, and I think it was wearing on everybody. All the guys were fond of each other, really, but it had run its course at that time. I know creatively he really wanted to stretch his wings and get a little weirder and a little more esoteric and go in unexpected directions. He had had so much success with the Cars, and I think he was almost bored with it. People expected the Cars thing; the hooks. He was like, “Fuck that, I want to do something else.”

    He also detested the whole “Hello, Cleveland!” bit. Even onstage when they would tour, he would try to get it as precise as you could. He really admired James Brown. Brown was completely anal about the perfection of his backup band, and Ric really appreciated it. He could value sloppiness in other artists, if it was part of their art. But it wasn’t him as a person. He was extremely precise as a person.

    To other people it seemed like he was chilling out at home with his kids. That’s not actually true. Our house had a studio in the basement; so on days when he didn’t leave, he was still immersed in music 24 hours a day. He was a complete workaholic. He would wake up and get meticulously dressed like he was going to a photo session and go down to the basement and work all day, even if nobody was in the house. You wouldn’t catch him dead in a pair of sweatpants.

    I think on his first two solo records he was a little disappointed [with their lack of commercial success] because every Cars record had been a hit. It seemed to be automatic. So he almost expected some of that to rub off on his solo albums even though he was venturing into different terrain. But after the initial two, he went, “OK, you know what? People aren’t buying my records, so I’m going to do whatever the fuck I want. I’m going to do my thing. I’m not doing it for other people, I’m doing it for me.”

    And then, of course, Ben got sick [Cars bassist Orr died of pancreatic cancer in 2000], and that was a real hit for Ric. He didn’t want to speak of it. It was very hard for him. He wrote that song about Ben, “Silver” [on Ocasek’s 2005 Nexterday album], and I think that was the only time I really heard him say how he felt about Ben. They were best friends at one point. Ben’s passing really scared Ric.

    Quite honestly, he did the [Cars 2011 reunion] for our boys, who never got to see him as a rock star. He wanted them to see what dad did. I remember this well: Our oldest, Jonathan, was in preschool, and his teacher came up to me after school and said, “We had a meeting in the morning, and we were all talking about what everyone’s parents did. They said, ‘My father’s a doctor’ and things like that.” Jonathan’s answer was, “My dad goes into the basement and my mom sits in the trailer.” I think Ric wanted to show the kids that he did more than work in the basement. The Cars played Lollapalooza, and I have pictures of my boys with the biggest grins ever watching their father. That’s the only moment when they got to see Ric was an artist and not just a man. They were kind of starstruck. It was a gift.

  16. #41
    ALL ACCESS Gruno's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    Dio, Alabama
    Posts
    3,167
    About three to four years before our separation, he played me a couple of tracks he’d done in the basement. It got me so excited. It was entirely new and different and still very him and really hooky. It was like him taken to the extremes — the sweetness of all music with pretty dark lyrics. It had some of his pop sensibilities. He loved Buddy Holly but also the Carpenters and Burt Bacharach. He had a crush on Karen Carpenter for a long time. He adored her voice. And those last songs incorporated all of that. I said, “This is magical — you need to go back and write four more [for an album].” But he never followed up on it. He tried and said, “It’s not coming to me.”

    The music business changed, and the way things work now is not what he felt comfortable with. He was more involved with his art in the last two years since our separation. We both talked about how we were desperately trying to create something. I was working on my memoir, and he was trying to write music, and we were both having a rough time of it. There was a period of upheaval for us personally, and I think he could resort to his art as a comfort — whereas to actually be creative musically took too much effort at that point.

    His death was not at all related to his heart or his surgery, which was two weeks earlier. I don’t know how much I want to say about the surgery, but it was successful. He was recuperating really well. So his passing was a fucking shock. The night before [his death], I had already made plans, and Jonathan had made plans, so I called my younger son Oliver, who was in school, and asked him if he could come home for the weekend to make sure someone was with his dad Saturday evening. He flew in and was with his dad that night, and on my way back home, I stopped and got some cookies for Ric. When I got there, he was sitting in his usual chair and I said, “I got some gooey cookies,” and he said, “OK, thanks, hon — I had some terrible cookies because I was in the mood for cookies, but I’ll have your gooey cookies tomorrow. I think I’m going to bed early since I‘m feeling a little sore.” And that was the last time I saw him alive.

    In the morning, I came [back] and made coffee. It was 10 in the morning, and I said I’m going to peek in and make sure he’s OK. I thought he slept a little too long. He was getting up earlier after his surgery because of hospital protocol. Generally he got up pretty late, 10 or 11. So I peeked into the bedroom, and he was in a position he always slept in — on his back, mouth vaguely open. He would sometimes snore, and he always had one of his hands elegantly folded beneath his chin and his bathrobe next to him. I thought he was asleep.

    I did some chores and then it was 11, and I thought, “This is weird, there’s something not right about this.” I poured the coffee and came upstairs to give it to him and he was in the exact same position; he hadn’t even moved a little bit. And at that point, I knew, but I couldn’t believe it. I walked up to him and he still looked asleep. Except he was really, really still and his eyes were a little bit open. I thought he was waking up, actually. I was about to wave my hand in front of his face and go, “Hey, I brought you coffee.” But I touched his cheek and it was like touching marble. That was pretty fucking awful.

    His manager warned me that as soon as you call 911, watch out, things will start to happen. So I didn’t call 911 for a long time. He had died in the night, not at 4 or whatever they claimed. That’s when I put in the call to 911. I wanted Ric’s sons to get here so we could all say goodbye to him. So we waited, and we got to circle the bed and hold hands and really say goodbye. We were here with his shape for many hours after his death. It was kind of wonderful because we all understood he was gone. He definitely left us. But the minute I called 911, literally two minutes [after], there were paparazzi at our house. That’s just disgusting.



    I’m still baffled by [the New York medical examiner’s announcement about heart issues]. Yes, Ric did have emphysema, but it wasn’t very bad; he didn’t need oxygen. He was fine to walk around and do whatever he wanted. He did a lot of walking. And he had atrial fibrillation aggravated by emphysema. But he never had high blood pressure. Attributing it to some super general thing was kind of puzzling to us. We knew he had those issues, but they were all very moderate and manageable. He quit smoking 14 years ago. I don’t exactly understand the postmortem, and I’m so super bummed and pissed off that stuff like this is public knowledge. Thanks — so while we grieve, why don’t you all take apart what my husband died of?


    But because of the surgery, all four of us had two weeks together every day. In the weirdest of ways, the surgery was a blessing. We had two weeks of just the four of us watching our favorite TV shows and me cooking or ordering in and hanging out. In this cloud of awfulness, that was a silver lining.


    I can’t help but be incredibly grateful. How many people get to pass like that? One of our friends said, “You get to pick your life, and you’re told you get to struggle and then become incredibly successful and influential and meet the woman who adores you and be with her for 30 some years and have a bunch of kids and die in your sleep.” Who wouldn’t volunteer for that one? Who would say no? He was a really, really lucky man.

    As told to David Browne









  17. #42
    ALL ACCESS Gruno's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    Dio, Alabama
    Posts
    3,167
    Quote Originally Posted by 3LockBox View Post
    I never understood Ocasek's vitriol toward TR on the matter. If I remember correctly it was Elliot Easton's idea to involve Rundgren. Not that I thought the New Cars was something I couldn't have lived without. It seemed, I dunno, beneath TR to be impersonating Orr in a cover band.
    Read This Article and you'll get as much back story as you're gonna get. An excerpt:

    "At this time in my life, I was all over the place and, therefore, I’m surprised I was even home at the Horatio St. townhouse I shared with Todd Rundgren when Ric called."

  18. #43
    Quote Originally Posted by Gruno View Post
    Read This Article and you'll get as much back story as you're gonna get. An excerpt:

    "At this time in my life, I was all over the place and, therefore, I’m surprised I was even home at the Horatio St. townhouse I shared with Todd Rundgren when Ric called."
    I dunno... That doesn't seem to involve The New Cars in any way. It's just that Ric was friends with Bebe. Am I missing something?

  19. #44
    ALL ACCESS Gruno's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    Dio, Alabama
    Posts
    3,167
    Quote Originally Posted by aith01 View Post
    I dunno... That doesn't seem to involve The New Cars in any way. It's just that Ric was friends with Bebe. Am I missing something?
    You read the entire article?

  20. #45
    Quote Originally Posted by Gruno View Post
    You read the entire article?
    Yeah.

  21. #46
    cunning linguist 3LockBox's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    hiding out in treetops, shouting out rude names
    Posts
    3,657
    Quote Originally Posted by Gruno View Post
    Read This Article and you'll get as much back story as you're gonna get. An excerpt:

    "At this time in my life, I was all over the place and, therefore, I’m surprised I was even home at the Horatio St. townhouse I shared with Todd Rundgren when Ric called."
    The article doesn't address The New Cars specifically, but does shed some light on why Ocasek would have a problem with Rundgren being associated with The Cars. It doesn't go into detail and requires one to fill in the gaps. I kinda understand now, though I'm not sure I'll ever be a fan of Bebe Buell.

  22. #47
    ALL ACCESS Gruno's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    Dio, Alabama
    Posts
    3,167
    Quote Originally Posted by 3LockBox View Post
    The article doesn't address The New Cars specifically, but does shed some light on why Ocasek would have a problem with Rundgren being associated with The Cars. It doesn't go into detail and requires one to fill in the gaps. I kinda understand now, though I'm not sure I'll ever be a fan of Bebe Buell.

  23. #48
    Quote Originally Posted by 3LockBox View Post
    The article doesn't address The New Cars specifically, but does shed some light on why Ocasek would have a problem with Rundgren being associated with The Cars. It doesn't go into detail and requires one to fill in the gaps. I kinda understand now, though I'm not sure I'll ever be a fan of Bebe Buell.
    Yeah, because Ric was friends with Bebe and so he probably didn't like Todd personally. I got that.

    Two sides to every story though, and it seems kinda illogical to hold Todd responsible for The New Cars when it was the other members of the Cars who orchestrated it. *shrug*
    Last edited by aith01; 12-06-2019 at 11:17 AM.

  24. #49
    ALL ACCESS Gruno's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    Dio, Alabama
    Posts
    3,167
    Quote Originally Posted by aith01 View Post
    Yeah, because Ric was friends with Bebe and so he probably didn't like Todd personally. I got that.
    When you're dealing with emotions within a relationship (Todd/Bebe), it's not as easy as "he probably didn't like Todd personally." I'm confident Ric was privy to many details regarding the relationship via Bebe. Ric's gonna side with his friend, right or wrong, in most cases.


    Quote Originally Posted by aith01 View Post
    Two sides to every story though, and it seems kinda illogical to hold Todd responsible for The New Cars when it was the other members of the Cars who orchestrated it. *shrug*
    Not illogical at all. Actually, it was quite big of Ocasek to allow Easton & Hawkes usage of The Cars name. It allowed Easton & Hawkes to gain a paycheck in the mid 2000's. Nice gesture. Ric did that in spite of how he felt about Rundgren. Looks to me like that is a sign of a good man to allow that.

  25. #50
    Quote Originally Posted by Gruno View Post
    [...] I'm confident Ric was privy to many details regarding the relationship via Bebe. Ric's gonna side with his friend, right or wrong, in most cases.
    That's what I was getting at. He likely got most of the details from her, and probably sided with her because she was his friend -- which I can understand.


    Quote Originally Posted by Gruno View Post
    Not illogical at all. Actually, it was quite big of Ocasek to allow Easton & Hawkes usage of The Cars name. It allowed Easton & Hawkes to gain a paycheck in the mid 2000's. Nice gesture. Ric did that in spite of how he felt about Rundgren. Looks to me like that is a sign of a good man to allow that.
    I wasn't referring to Ric here.

    I agree that it was big of him to let them use The Cars name; he kept things professional and didn't let personal feelings intervene. Ric was a good guy, I believe.

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •