{"id":974185,"date":"2019-12-26T10:28:40","date_gmt":"2019-12-26T17:28:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=931315"},"modified":"2019-12-26T10:28:40","modified_gmt":"2019-12-26T17:28:40","slug":"dave-riley-bassist-for-noise-rockers-big-black-dead-at-59","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kfmu\/music-news\/dave-riley-bassist-for-noise-rockers-big-black-dead-at-59\/","title":{"rendered":"Dave Riley, Bassist for Noise Rockers Big Black, Dead at 59"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Dave Riley \u2014 the bassist for the fiercely independent, influential noise-rock group Big Black<\/a> \u2014 died Tuesday after a short battle with cancer. His housemate, Rachel Brown, reported the news on Facebook<\/a>. He was 59.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn late August, [Riley] developed a persistent sore throat that wasn\u2019t responsive to antibiotics,\u201d Brown wrote. \u201cInitially dismissed as acid reflux, further testing showed that he had a large squamous cell carcinoma in his throat that had already spread to several places in his lungs. Since treatment wouldn\u2019t have made any difference, Dave chose to come home to die. His doctor predicted that he had about six months left, but sadly the cancer was so aggressive that he didn\u2019t even make it an additional two.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Big Black, Riley played fat, muscular, sometimes funky bass lines that complemented singer-guitarist Steve Albini<\/a>\u2019s and guitarist Santiago Durango\u2019s brittle riffs and the band\u2019s defiantly aggressive and altogether uncommercial lyrics.<\/p>\n

On the song \u201cKerosene,\u201d<\/a> he gave the track a low, propulsive rumble while the guitarists played stuttering, high-pitched lines, and his bass served as the basis for the verses.<\/p>\n

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Similarly, on \u201cL Dopa,\u201d<\/a> he kicks off the track with a steamrolling bass line that sets up Albini and Durango perfectly for noisy, six-string experiments. Considering the band used a drum machine named \u201cRoland,\u201d Riley\u2019s playing gave the group some soul in the rhythm section.<\/p>\n

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Popular on Rolling Stone <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Riley met the other members of Big Black in 1982 when he moved to Chicago from Detroit, where he worked at a recording studio where both George Clinton and Sly Stone recorded. He has engineering credits on Parliament\u2019s 1980 LP Trombipulation<\/em> and Funkadelic\u2019s 1981 record, The Electric Spanking of War Babies <\/em>(which featured Stone as a guest).<\/p>\n

According to Michael Azerrad\u2019s 2001 book Our Band Could Be Your Life<\/em>, Riley grew up a misfit. When he was a teen, he was in a car accident that disfigured his face, which impeded the way he spoke. Albini initially spotted Riley playing with a band called Savage Beliefs and gave him a copy of Big Black\u2019s first EP.<\/p>\n