Ric Ocasek lead singer of 'The Cars' dies at 75.

[Ronaldoescobar]

RIP Ric.

[Crabcakes]

The Cars and Candy-o were huge in the day.  A massive debut album followed up by an arguably better one.  It was unprecedented and Ocasek was front and centre.  He was a marvelous talent.  RIP

[Lionized27]

 

[Ghostsof1915]

I bought Heartbeat City on vinyl. I played it over and over again. 

I felt it unfair a lot of critics years later would bash The Cars. Ok they didn't get political, or have an agenda. But that was a part of their charm. 

 

RIP Ric. Now you and Ben can jam again. 

 

 

[189lb enforcers?]

No!!!

 

In 1983, I think, my dad showed me this new cassette and said, “now this... is rock and roll, listen.” And I did. 

 

Soundscape of my youth. Heartbeat City. 

 

Our lives are benchmarked by the passing of our childhood idols. Every year, the gravity of my mortality and the inching towards that horizon gets more and more heavy on my mind. 

 

Rick was one ugly dude, but his chicks were unbelievably hot. I think he’d say he had a good run. Thanks for the soundtrack of my youth, Rick. 

 

 

Edited September 16, 2019 by 189lb enforcers?

[Ghostsof1915]

I like the punk/hard rock experiments too!

 

 

[xereau]

Fantastic Album, and fantastic cover of The Cars' biggest song.

 

(Tool's bassist is in it, if you care)

 

 

[rizzuto&hatoum]

here's an article reflecting about the avalanche of impending deaths of rock legends 

https://www.theweek.com/articles/861750/coming-death-just-about-every-rock-legend

[Heretic]

RIP Mr. Ocasek, RIP...

 

Shoo be do..... 

[redhdlois]

Like Deb stated.....hearing of his death brought me back in time to a memory I had of the Cars.  I remember my friends and I crashed a huge party that was going on across the street from their house (we had no idea who lived there), and some guy at the party told us he was a member of the Cars......unique pick up line lol.  It was right around the time where they had become very popular.

Anyway, I feel so grateful to have grown up in what I believe was the best era.  We experienced some of the greatest moments in history, as well as some of the most amazing music.  I sometimes wish I was a bit older that I could have experienced going to Vegas and seen the Rat Pack, Elvis, etc.  

[Rounoush]

RIP. Big loss.

 

I'm posting Double Life, baby! Fantastic song.

 

 

Edited September 16, 2019 by Rounoush

[Canuck Surfer]

2 hours ago, rizzuto&hatoum said:

here's an article reflecting about the avalanche of impending deaths of rock legends 

https://www.theweek.com/articles/861750/coming-death-just-about-every-rock-legend

Yeesh.

 

Still need to see Sir Paul. He's coming November!  Still need to see Mick & Keith.  I missed out on them a few years back. They cancelled a show because Mick's wife passed away the day before a show. I moved before the make up engagement.  Never saw Van Morrison. Never caught the Who, Daltrey & Townsend, nor Led Zepplin's Paige. I have seen everyone else on the list; many in the last ten years including Ray Davies (Kinks), Carole King, Robert Plant, Joni Mitchell. Deborah Harry (with Cyndy Lauper), Elton John just last year (seen him many times ), Simon, Simon & Garfunkel, Neil Young, Jackson Browne who was absolute magic, Bruce Springsteen last year & Billy Joel. Seen a few of the others Rod Stewart, Erik Clapton, I would add Dire Straights, Pink Floyd, Don Henley all many ears ago. And I hope to see Bryan Ferry, another of my hero's.

 

Never saw Rick Okasek or the Cars!  

 

[PhillipBlunt]

Rest in peace, Ric.

[rizzuto&hatoum]

8 hours ago, Canuck Surfer said:

Yeesh.

 

Still need to see Sir Paul. He's coming November!  Still need to see Mick & Keith.  I missed out on them a few years back. They cancelled a show because Mick's wife passed away the day before a show. I moved before the make up engagement.  Never saw Van Morrison. Never caught the Who, Daltrey & Townsend, nor Led Zepplin's Paige. I have seen everyone else on the list; many in the last ten years including Ray Davies (Kinks), Carole King, Robert Plant, Joni Mitchell. Deborah Harry (with Cyndy Lauper), Elton John just last year (seen him many times ), Simon, Simon & Garfunkel, Neil Young, Jackson Browne who was absolute magic, Bruce Springsteen last year & Billy Joel. Seen a few of the others Rod Stewart, Erik Clapton, I would add Dire Straights, Pink Floyd, Don Henley all many ears ago. And I hope to see Bryan Ferry, another of my hero's.

 

Never saw Rick Okasek or the Cars!  

 

Just missed Bryan Ferry two weeks ago and McCartney a couple months ago. Saw the Stones on their Bridges to Babylon tour and the Kinks (and/or Davies) multiple times..

Never really got into the Cars but RIP Ric.

[Dr. Crossbar]

It's really interesting looking back now.

 

By 1983, I had written off The Cars as a fading late 70s band that I thought peaked with "Shake It Up" in 1981 after "Just What I Needed", "Good Times Roll", and "My Best Friends Girl". 

 

Between 1978 and 1982 was a really weird time in music as far as radio friendly mainstream stuff. You had people like Melissa Manchester, Andy Gibb, Diana Ross, Kim Carnes, Donna Summer, Eddie Money, along with bands like Quarterflash, KC and the Sunshine Band, The Spinners, Kool & the Gang, Willie Nelson, plus bands like The Vapors, The Monks, Blondie, Devo, and The Cars. There was just a lot of stuff in play at once. Hell, even The Powder Blues Band and Irish Rovers were in play at that time. It was a weird time before the video age.

 

By 1983, I thought The Cars were already defined by that transitional period. Until, of course, Heartbeat City came out and The Cars were at the forefront of the video era. That album was a huge in my own coming of age and was the soundtrack for so many significant moments in my life in a short period of time.

 

I'm blown away how they were able to reinvent themselves. The big change was putting an awkward, gangly Ric Ocasek out front more as the frontman as compared to the prettier Ben Orr in the earlier days. It's a bold change that really gave them new life and separates their eras from late-70s, early 80s to Heartbeat City in 1984 and everything afterward.

 

Ric Ocasek's career as a producer and composer is equally impressive. Another great one gone!! RIP Ric! 

[Rubik]

 

[nuckin_futz]

Ric Ocasek cut estranged wife Paulina Porizkova from his will, claiming she ‘abandoned’ him: report

While Paulina Porizkova said she remained close to Ric Ocasek after their surprise separation — and was the one to find the Cars singer after his unexpected death — he made a point of her cutting her from his will.

 

Page Six obtained a copy of the legal document and reports that Ocasek, 75, said in it, “I have made no provision for my wife Paulina Porizkova (“Paulina”) as we are in the process of divorcing... Even if I should die before our divorce is final … Paulina is not entitled to any elective share … because she has abandoned me.”

 

The document reportedly stated that Ocasek signed it on Aug. 28 — weeks before his death.

 

Porizkova met Ocasek in 1984 while making the video for the Cars’s hit “Drive.” They were married in 1989 and had two sons, Jonathan and Oliver. In May 2018, Porizkova confirmed that they had separated a year earlier — despite still hitting the red carpet together, including at the 2018 Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, at which he was honored. She categorized the split as peaceful and said they were still a “happy family” but “no longer a couple.”

 

Despite their split, the 54-year-old supermodel has said they remained close. She shared on social media that she found her estranged husband, who had been recovering from surgery, deceased at the NYC townhouse they once shared on Sept. 15. According to the medical examiner’s office, Ocasek died naturally of heart disease with pulmonary emphysema, a type of lung disease, a contributing factor.

In an essay for Rolling Stone, Porizkova — who called Ocasek’s death “the end of my world as I knew it” — detailed the last time she saw him alive.

 

“I stopped and got some cookies for Ric,” Porizkova wrote. “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.”

 

When she returned to his home the next morning, she made coffee and waited for him to wake up. She went to check on him and thought he was sleeping, but an hour later he was in the same position and she “knew.” She recalled how his cheek felt like cold marble. Before calling 911, because she knew he was gone, she gathered Ocasek’s sons — he had six in total — for goodbyes.

 

Porizkova noted that because of Ocasek’s surgery, their family of four “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.”

 

Page Six reports that Ocasek’s will filing listed his assets as $5 million in “copyrights,” with $100,000 in “tangible personal property” and $15,000 in cash. Four of his six sons — including the two with Porizkova — were included in the will, but two weren’t.

 

That isn’t necessarily a huge red flag, as celebrities tend to have private trusts — the details of which aren’t made public — so the sons may have been covered there. And Ocasek’s NYC home was on the market earlier this year for $15.25 million (he bought it for $2.5 million in 1989), so that alone would make his net worth likely much higher.

 

The executer of Ocasek’s will is his “friend and business manager,” Mario Testani, whom Ocasek thanked for “watching our chips,” slang for money, in his Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame speech in 2018.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/ric-ocasek-cut-estranged-wife-paulina-porizkova-from-his-will-claiming-she-abandoned-him-report-155623596.html

 

*********************

 

Cut her out just weeks before his death.

 

 

 

[RUPERTKBD]

Nice song choice NF.....

 

It's pretty telling about a band's staying power and overall body of work, when you can post a song that encapsulates virtually any situation. That's how prolific the Cars were.

 

I was recently going over old set lists and I saw that I had played three Cars tunes, over the years. It doesn't sound like much, but you pretty much have to have keyboards to cover these guys and you also need a screaming guitar player, if you want to get anything close to what Elliot Easton is doing.

 

I took up keys a while ago, which allowed us to add My Best Friend's Girl. I had already covered Just What I Needed and we currently have Lets Go in the set list.

 

I'm open to suggestions, if anyone has others....