They say that if you live long enough you’ll write obituaries for all of your heroes. But this is getting to be an awful task.

Big Shot Magazine is reporting (and two people I’ve spoken with have confirmed) that Scott Hardkiss, legendary Bay Area DJ and producer (most notably under the God Within moniker as well as part of Hardkiss with Gavin and Robbie) passed away “unexpectedly” earlier today. Per his discogs.com page (which has been mysteriously updated recently with a date of death), Scott was 43 years old.

I didn’t know Scott Hardkiss, but he was one of my first heroes in electronic music. I knew little of the music outside of Chicago (and even less about the history within the city) when I first saw him at the first, notorious Furthur rave and campout in rural Wisconsin. Scott blew everyone away – and then did it again the following year. I immediately went to Gramaphone and, not being a DJ, bought everything with his name on it, including what I think was my first CD of electronic music, the Hardkiss Delusions of Grandeur double album.

I recently contacted Scott for a story I’ve had in mind about that first Furthur rave; there was nothing extraordinary about the encounter – just two guys writing about the hazy memories of a sometimes nihilistic youth. All I can share are memories and records.

Here, courtesy of the outstanding Rave Archive, is a recording from that soggy, moldy, decrepit but unforgettable Memorial Day Weekend in 1995 (or at least they say so – I have no idea how anyone can remember anything after Saturday night), as I first knew him.

People are leaving memorials on the last post on Scott’s Facebook page, as is becoming the custom of our time, and where his motto reads:

Play it from the heart or don’t play it at all. Show some love & enthusiasm or get out of the way and stop wasting our precious time. Stay up.

 

3 COMMENTS

  1. Just a bit of fact clearing: Furthur was ’94, Even Furthur was ’95 and then the next Even Furthur (feat. Daft Punk, Hardkiss, et al was ’96)

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