I was shocked and saddened to hear yesterday through a mutual friend about the passing of Fran Powers. I hadn’t corresponded with him in quite a while, but knew he was not in good health for some time. I was sorry to learn that he finally succumbed to his illness.
While we had a few mutual friends, I didn’t know Fran exceptionally well, but only really got to know him through this stupid blog. I’d been aware of him and his status as a member of New York punk scene in bands like Modern Clix, Whole Wide World and Ultraviolence (below), but didn’t get to know him until accosting him at a party thrown by Yukie Ohta of the SoHo Memory Project. Shortly after that, I conducted an interview with Fran about his days on the hardcore scene and his fleeting-but-memorable cameo in Martin Scorsese’s “After Hours.” You can read all that here.
From that point on, we became friends, and Fran was frequently further invoked here on the blog, as recently as this past April.
Farewell, Fran. I will miss you and always wish we’d had more time to hang out.
The excellent photo of Fran above was taken by Brooke Smith.
Pour one out & crank it up…
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