CHEETAH CHROME Architect of American Punk, Dead at 71

SONIC REDUCER: THE WORLD JUST GOT A LITTLE LESS DANGEROUS

Cheetah Chrome, Architect of American Punk, Dead at 71

Eugene Richard O'Connor — Cheetah Chrome to everyone who ever plugged into a Marshall and meant it — died Sunday September 13th in Nashville. He was 71.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Chrome was standing at absolute ground zero of American punk. Rocket from the Tombs in 1974 — the proto-punk wrecking crew that also spawned Pere Ubu. Then the Dead Boys, CBGB, Young Loud and Snotty, and songs like Sonic Reducer and Ain't It Fun that still sound like a fist through a window fifty years on.

At a time when punk was getting mannered and art-schooled on both sides of the Atlantic, Cheetah Chrome was the genuine article — a guitarist who played like his amp was on fire and couldn't have cared less who was watching. Raw, mean, funny and completely committed. The Dead Boys weren't performing danger. They were it.

He never stopped. Solo records, a creative director role at Nashville's Plowboy Records, and his 2010 memoir A Dead Boy's Tale From The Front Lines Of Punk Rock — a book that reads exactly like he played. Loud, honest, no filler.

He is survived by his wife Anna and son Rogan.

Godspeed Cheetah. Say hello to Stiv.