Rockers We’ve Lost In 2012: Mike Kelley
Artist and musician Mike Kelley died Feb. 1. of an apparent suicide. He was 57. Although he was best known for his striking, subversive contemporary art creations, the suburban Detroit native was also part of the mid-’70s proto-punk movement.
The band he co-founded, Destroy All Monsters, fused together noise, garage rock, psych rock and confrontational subject matter. Although Kelley left the group in 1976, Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton and the MC5′s late bassist, Michael Davis, were in a later version of the band.
Sonic Youth‘s Thurston Moore was a fan of the experimental group; in fact, he released a 3-CD Destroy All Monsters boxed set on his Ecstatic Peace! label in 1994. Sonic Youth also used a Kelley artistic creation for the cover of their 1992 album, ‘Dirty.’
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