The soundtrack to my journey home tonight had the theme of death - not for any morbid reasons it just sort of wandered in that direction! It started as I was listening to Libera's "I am the day" and I passed a hearse. The combination of the religious music and the image of the funeral made me think about a friend who died recently in a car crash when it swerved to avoid a deer.

Mark was a nice bloke - he was a Morris dancer with a side called Golden Star and he was a larger than life character who was just always fun to be with. I still find it hard to comprehend how someone like that can be just gone in an instant and it made me think about how fragile life can be.

When the Libera track ended I was looking through the tracks on my Archos and decided to listen to a reading of a section of the Late Ken Kesey's Demon Box called "Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall". It's a story about a drifter who turned up at Kesey's farm the night John Lennon was shot and how the death of a mutual hero broke down the barriers between them. After that I had to play my favourite Lennon track "Working Class Hero"

And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see

So that's how the idea came into existence and it continued with Jerry Garcia singing "Death don't have no mercy" from the Grateful Dead masterpiece Live/Dead. Of course the lines...

He comes to your house, you know he don't take long
You look in the bed this morning children
You find that your mother is gone
I said death don't have no mercy in this land

...got me thinking about the death of my mother in 1990. Even though it's over 15 years ago the hurt and the loss is still there. I still find it difficult to remember her before the illness that caused her death.

Uncle Frank

They next Dead Rock Star I found was Frank Zappa with his track "titties and beer". I saw him once in 1979 at Knebworth but I wasn't ready for him. I wish I could have seen him once i had leant to appreciate his music. I don't have enough Zappa albums I must buy more. The trail of death ended there as I wanted to listen to more of Uncle Frank so I put on Strictly Commercial.

I got to thinking about the stars I had seen who are no longer with us so I decided to make a list which is below (of course I may have missed some)

Johnny Cash, Muddy Waters, Frank Zappa, Harry Chapin, Phil Lynott, Cozy Powell, John Entwistle, Rory Gallagher, Freddie Mercury, Bon Scott, Robert Calvert, Alex Harvey, Ted Hawkins, Alan Hull, Jeff Buckley, Ian Dury, Paul Young (Sad Cafe), Joe Strummer, Jake Thackray and of course Jerry Garcia

(Ones I forgot: John Bonham (Led Zep),Mike Patto (Boxer), Les Gray (Mud), Peter DeFreitas (Echo & the Bunnymen), Nico (Velvert Underground), Howie Epstein (Tom Petty Band, Adrian Borland (The Sound)

Those who have died since I wrote this Blog: Vince Welnick (Tubes and Grateful Dead), Arthur Lee (Love)

By the way the list was put together with the help of a site called the Dead Rock Star Club

I had left work early to take Ben to the Doctors to get his 3-month injections - Sarah can't do it as she hates needles and would probably pass out. Anyway the nightmare that has been haunting me since I found out he was on his way finally happened as the nurse asked me if I was his Grandfather!!