nihilist spasm band is right in fredeeky's wheel house...

Hugh McIntyre, bassist of the granddaddy of all noise bands, the Nihilist Spasm Band, died on Monday. His memorial service will be this coming Monday, Dec. 13, at the George Millard Funeral Home, 60 Ridout St. South, London, Ontario ("the same room," Ben Portis tells me, "where final farewells were offered to Greg Curnoe in 1992").
The London Free Press and The Globe and Mail had obituaries today.
Mark at Wood S Lot also pays tribute, and posts a link to an amazing story I totally missed about REM playing with the Nihilist Spasm Band in London last month.
Elsewhere I found a quote on the session from REM bassist Mike Mills: "It was nothing but improvisation. You just get up there and start making noise. That was huge fun for us since we don't really do that on stage. We're not the most improvisational of bands."
If you've never heard the NSB, London campus radio station CHRW offers archival mp3s of these albums: Vol. 2 (1978), 7x~x=x (1984), Live in Japan (1996) and Every Monday Night (1999).