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US singer Colonel Abrams, a pioneer of house and dance music in the 1980s, has died at the age of 67.
The musician scored his biggest hit in 1985 with the club single Trapped, which reached number three in the UK.
Last year, it emerged he was living homeless in New York. Friends then launched a fundraising campaign to help him obtain vital diabetes medication.
His death was announced on Facebook by DJ Tony "Tune" Herbert, who said: "Now he is at peace."
He added: "Our condolences go out to his family and fans world wide. He is no longer suffering or Trapped."
Colonel Abrams - his real name - was born in Detroit, the home of Motown, in 1949.
He said his music was a blend of those melodies and the hard street rhythms of New York, where he moved as a child.
"I studied all the people on Motown, and I studied the music and listened to the lyrics Smokey Robinson used to write, and just craved the opportunity to be on Motown," he told the Associated Press news agency in the 1980s.
"But after my family moved to New York, I studied street music, and I sort of combined them both: The Detroit sound and the street sounds of New York."
Prince connection
Abrams was in the group Conservative Manor with his brother Morris in the late 1960s, then sang lead vocals for 94 East in 1976.
They briefly featured Prince on guitar, and recorded his song Just Another Sucker in 1977.
The band dissolved once Prince's solo career took off, and Abrams joined Surprise Package, a New Jersey group.
He scored a small hit in 1984 with the ballad Leave the Message Behind the Door but it was the follow-up, a soulful house mantra called Music Is The Answer, which finally propelled him into the limelight.
An international dance hit, it earned him a record deal with MCA - which led to the chart hits Trapped and I'm Not Going to Let You.
Abrams continued to feature on the US dance and R&B charts into the mid-1990s, and performed around the world into the new century.
However, he fell upon hard times in his final years, prompting Herbert and house DJ Marshall Jefferson to launch a crowdfunding campaign.
"The Colonel is very ill with no permanent place of his own to live at this time and limited financial resources," they said at the time.
"Those of us who have listened to his awesome music and know of his plight, have banded together to try and help him through this rough patch."
According to Herbert, the musician died on Thanksgiving.
Joey Negro, Dave Pearce and Swizz Beatz are among those to have paid tribute online.
"It's a sad day for the House Music community," wrote Jellybean Benitez, a producer who worked on Madonna's Holiday and Whitney Houston's Love Will Save The Day.
"Just learned Colonel Abrams passed away," added Jefferson. "Never to be forgotten, R.I.P."
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
He died this morning, sounds like surgical complications, confirmed by family members on facebook.
His books were fantastic, I have over fifty of them on a bookcase behind me, and still enjoy reading them. For me and many others they were the entry point into the hobby of wargaming and interest in fantasy literature and games.
He recently released a fantastic video game/ gamebook hybrid which I highly recommend (Joe Dever's Lone Wolf is the title), and was starting to write and publish new Lone Wolf books. with book 29 released earlier this year. Sadly, he died before his plans to publish books 30-32 could be completed. He was ambitious and hard working right up until his death and really cared about his fans.
The world has lost a fantastic author and really wonderful person, I'm glad I had the chance to talk to him briefly on facebook earlier this summer and express how much the books meant to me growing up.
jreilly89 wrote: Very sad news. How are the game books? They seem interesting?
His last major works were book 29 of the Lone Wolf series, and this rather excellent video game, available on lots of different consoles, PC and mobile:
Fanastic person, huge influence on my life and will be greatly missed. This is one 2016 death that really hurts us fantasy/ gaming nerds.
Worth noting that he was very active in the early days of Games Workshop as well, often writing for White Dwarf.
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/11/30 22:42:43
"Sometimes the only victory possible is to keep your opponent from winning." - The Emperor, from The Outcast Dead.
"Tell your gods we are coming for them, and that their realms will burn as ours did." -Thostos Bladestorm
Saw this earlier today in the news. Picked up the lad from guitar lessons after school and promptly went to Mickey D's for a couple of Big Mac combo meals. Honestly can't remember the last time I had one, but yum!
I was back on project eon just a couple of weeks ago.
Sad new Joe Dever died, he had a talent.
n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.
It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion.
In this case, I'd say the news is bittersweet. It just seems such a horrible thing to live with, that I think it better he passed on, and perhaps there's some familial comfort in that.
We were once so close to heaven, St. Peter came out and gave us medals; declaring us "The nicest of the damned".
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
I have cassette tapes of him reading Watership Down. So, to me, he is Bigwig, Hazel, Fiver, Pipkin, Kehaar and all the rest of the characters of one of my favourite childhood books.
A bit of my childhood just died.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2016/12/02 00:28:32
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
2016 is dead set into exterminating my teen year icons. Tolkien got me into fantasy, Lone Wolf made me start loving RPGs. Goodbye Mr Dever.
M.
Jenkins: You don't have jurisdiction here!
Smith Jamison: We aren't here, which means when we open up on you and shred your bodies with automatic fire then this will never have happened.
About the Clans: "Those brief outbursts of sense can't hold back the wave of sibko bred, over hormoned sociopaths that they crank out though."
As gamers, where Chinese take-out is almost as critical a pizza, we should all take a moment to mourn his passing.
Peng Chang-kuei, the Taiwanese chef who invented General Tso’s chicken, a dish nearly universal in Chinese restaurants in the United States, died on Wednesday in Taipei. He was 98.
The death was reported by The Associated Press.
The British food scholar Fuchsia Dunlop has called General Tso’s chicken — lightly battered pieces of dark chicken fried in a chili-accented sweet-and-sour sauce — “the most famous Hunanese dish in the world.”
But like many Chinese dishes that have found favor with Americans, General Tso’s chicken was unknown in China until recently. Nor was it, in the version known to most Americans, Hunanese, a cuisine defined by salty, hot and sour flavors.
Mr. Peng, an official chef for the Nationalist government, which fled to Taiwan after the 1949 revolution in China, said he created the dish during a four-day visit by Adm. Arthur W. Radford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during the Taiwan Strait crisis of 1955. On the spur of the moment, he assigned it the name of a Hunanese general, Zuo Zongtang, who had helped put down a series of rebellions in the 19th century.
“Originally the flavors of the dish were typically Hunanese — heavy, sour, hot and salty,” Mr. Peng told Ms. Dunlop, the author of “Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook” (2007), which is devoted to the cuisine of Hunan. “The original General Tso’s chicken was Hunanese in taste and made without sugar.”
The dish made its way to New York in the early 1970s after Chinese chefs in New York, preparing to open the city’s first Hunanese restaurants — Uncle Tai’s Hunan Yuan and Hunam — visited a restaurant that Mr. Peng had opened in Taipei. They adapted the recipe to suit American tastes.
“We didn’t want to copy chef Peng exactly,” Ed Schoenfeld, an assistant to the restaurant’s owner, David Keh, told the website Salon in 2010. “We added our own spin to dishes. And so our General Tso’s chicken was cut differently, into small dice, and we served it with water chestnuts, black mushrooms, hoisin sauce and vinegar.” The chef was Wen Dah Tai.
At Hunam, the chef Tsung Ting Wang — who was also a partner with Michael Tong in another prominent Chinese restaurant in Manhattan, Shun Lee Palace — put a Sichuan spin on the dish. He crisped up the batter and sweetened the sauce, producing a taste combination that millions of Americans came to love. He called it General Ching’s chicken. But as the dish traveled, the General Tso name adhered.
Both restaurants were awarded four stars, the highest rating, by Raymond Sokolov, the restaurant critic of The New York Times.
In 1973, with Hunan fever raging, Mr. Peng came to New York and, with Mr. Keh, opened Uncle Peng’s Hunan Yuan on East 44th Street, near the United Nations. Mr. Peng discovered, to his consternation, that his creation had preceded him, and that the child was almost unrecognizable.
Photo
Peng Chang-kuei in an image from the 2014 documentary “The Search for General Tso.” Credit Wicked Delicate Films
“New Yorkers didn’t realize he was the real thing, and some treated him like he was copying,” Mr. Schoenfeld said.
The tangled history of the dish was explored in 2014 in a documentary, “The Search for General Tso,” directed by Ian Cheney.
Peng Chang-kuei was born in Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province, in 1918. His family was poor.
At 13, after running away from home, he began serving an apprenticeship under the celebrated Hunanese chef Cao Jing-shen. Formerly a family chef to Tan Yan-kai, prime minister of the Nationalist government in the late 1920s, Mr. Cao had opened the restaurant Jianleyuan in Changsha.
In the 1930s, after the Japanese invasion, Mr. Peng moved to Chunking, the temporary Nationalist capital, where he began to gain renown. After World War II, he was installed as the government’s head banquet chef. He emigrated to Taiwan in 1949, leaving his wife and two sons behind, and continued to cater official functions.
He is survived by a son, Peng Tie-Cheng. Complete information on other survivors was not available.
New York proved to be a fraught experiment, as Mr. Peng’s restaurant soon closed. “Doom trailed Uncle Peng,” the food critic Gael Greene wrote in New York magazine in 1973. “The pressures of Manhattan restaurant reality were too much for the brilliant teacher.”
Undaunted, Mr. Peng borrowed money from friends and opened Yunnan Yuan on East 52nd Street, near Lexington Avenue, where Henry A. Kissinger, then the secretary of state, became a faithful customer.
“Kissinger visited us every time he was in New York, and we became great friends,” Mr. Peng told Ms. Dunlop. “It was he who brought Hunanese food to public notice.”
General Tso’s chicken began to assume celebrity status when Bob Lape, a restaurant critic, showed Mr. Peng making the dish in a segment for ABC News. The station received some 1,500 requests for the recipe.
Encouraged, Mr. Peng reopened his old restaurant as Peng’s, bringing his signature dish with him. Reviewing the restaurant in the The Times in 1977, Mimi Sheraton wrote, “General Tso’s chicken was a stir-fried masterpiece, sizzling hot both in flavor and temperature.”
He left the restaurant in 1981 and opened Peng’s Garden in Yonkers, then returned to Taiwan in the late ’80s and opened the first in a chain of Peng Yuan restaurants there. The menu featured General Tso’s chicken. It was listed on the menu in Mandarin as Zuo Zongtang’s farmyard chicken, and in English as chicken à la viceroy.
In 1990 he opened a branch of his restaurant in the Great Wall Hotel in Changsha, but it was not a success.
As Hunanese chefs adopted General Tso’s chicken, the dish entered a strange second career. In a sweeping act of historical revisionism, it came to be seen as a traditional Hunan dish. Several Hunanese chefs have described it in their cookbooks as a favorite of the 19th-century general’s.
Oh what a "loss". If anything 2016 should be rewarded for begining to clean out those whom has invented such foul things as the Big Mac
Foul? McDonald's has fallen a long way, but in it's prime, the Big Mac was delicious. Hell, I know of at least 5 sit-down joints that sell their version of it. You can say the actual ingredients/what you get today is foul, but the idea itself is delicious.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/12/05 17:55:02
Oh what a "loss". If anything 2016 should be rewarded for begining to clean out those whom has invented such foul things as the Big Mac
Foul? McDonald's has fallen a long way, but in it's prime, the Big Mac was delicious. Hell, I know of at least 5 sit-down joints that sell their version of it. You can say the actual ingredients/what you get today is foul, but the idea itself is delicious.
It's not exactly unique in terms of ingredients. It's beef, cheese, lettuce, gherkins and a mayonnaise sauce. That is pretty much a standard burger from any decent burger joint.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/12/06 13:44:08
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
Oh what a "loss". If anything 2016 should be rewarded for begining to clean out those whom has invented such foul things as the Big Mac
Dude, your country gave the world rakfisk. No room to talk.
Also, he was a WW2 vet, an entrepreneur who created jobs for hundreds maybe thousands and a philanthropist. Truly a villain of the worst kind.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/12/06 04:04:52
"Sometimes the only victory possible is to keep your opponent from winning." - The Emperor, from The Outcast Dead.
"Tell your gods we are coming for them, and that their realms will burn as ours did." -Thostos Bladestorm
British actor Peter Vaughan, best known for roles in Game of Thrones and Porridge, has died at the age of 93.
He played Maester Aemon in the HBO series and Grouty in the TV sitcom.
His many other roles included parts in TV shows Citizen Smith, Chancer and Our Friends in the North.
His agent Sally Long-Innes said: "This is to confirm that very sadly Peter Vaughan passed away at approximately 10.30 this morning. He died peacefully with his family around him."
RIP fella
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
British actor Peter Vaughan, best known for roles in Game of Thrones and Porridge, has died at the age of 93.
He played Maester Aemon in the HBO series and Grouty in the TV sitcom.
His many other roles included parts in TV shows Citizen Smith, Chancer and Our Friends in the North.
His agent Sally Long-Innes said: "This is to confirm that very sadly Peter Vaughan passed away at approximately 10.30 this morning. He died peacefully with his family around him."
RIP fella
And now his Watch is ended.
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
Oh what a "loss". If anything 2016 should be rewarded for begining to clean out those whom has invented such foul things as the Big Mac
Foul? McDonald's has fallen a long way, but in it's prime, the Big Mac was delicious. Hell, I know of at least 5 sit-down joints that sell their version of it. You can say the actual ingredients/what you get today is foul, but the idea itself is delicious.
It's not exactly unique in terms of ingredients. It's beef, cheese, lettuce, gherkins and a mayonnaise sauce. That is pretty much a standard burger from any decent burger joint.
Now a days, sure. But at it's release, it was the first double-stack cheeseburger with something other than mayo, ketchup, or mustard. Hell, unique enough to become a status symbol
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/12/06 15:03:56
Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s Greg Lake has died at the age of 69 after a battle with cancer.
The news was confirmed on Lake’s official Twitter account by Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s longtime manager Stewart Young.
The statement reads: “Yesterday, December 7th, I lost my best friend to a long and stubborn battle with cancer.
“Greg Lake will stay in my heart forever, as he has always been. His family would be grateful for privacy during this time of their grief.”
Yes keyboardist Geoff Downes also reacted to the news, saying: “Very sad about Greg Lake. I had the privilege of working with him on several projects. His great talent will be sorely missed by all.
"Another genius has passed away. 2016 has truly been an annus horribilis in musical history."
Lake was born on November 10, 1947, and was a member of the first King Crimson lineup, appearing on their 1969 debut album In The Court Of The Crimson King and second record In The Wake Of Poseidon.
After striking up a friendship with The Nice’s keyboardist Keith Emerson, the pair subsequently teamed up and recruited Carl Palmer to form prog supergroup Emerson, Lake & Palmer.
The influential trio would go on to release nine studio albums between 1970 and 1994.
The news comes after Lake’s bandmate Keith Emerson died earlier
this year as a result of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
Oh man, today was going so well and then I hear about John Glenn. Looks like I'm gonna have to stick up my middle finger at 2016 yet again. I remember when he went up on the space shuttle and that he was the oldest man to fly in space. 11 year old me thought that was really cool that an astronaut from back then was getting to go back into space.
R.I.P. John, and my condolences to his wife and family.
My armies (re-counted and updated on 11/7/24, including modeled wargear options):
Dark Angels: ~16000 Astra Militarum: ~1200 | Imperial Knights: ~2300 | Leagues of Votann: ~1300 | Tyranids: ~3400 | Stormcast Eternals: ~5000 | Kruleboyz: ~3500 | Lumineth Realm-Lords: ~700
Check out my P&M Blogs: ZergSmasher's P&M Blog | Imperial Knights blog | Board Games blog | Total models painted in 2024: 40 | Total models painted in 2025: 25 | Current main painting project: Tomb Kings
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: You need your bumps felt. With a patented, Grotsnik Corp Bump Feelerer 9,000.
The Grotsnik Corp Bump Feelerer 9,000. It only looks like several bricks crudely gaffer taped to a cricket bat.
Grotsnik Corp. Sorry, No Refunds.
6000 pts - Harlies: 1000 pts - 
4000 pts - 
1000 pts - 
1000 pts 
Ultramarines, 3rd Co. and friends, 16k+ 
4k 
4k Points
Competition Index
~1.5k
~16000 Astra Militarum: 
~2300 | Leagues of Votann: 
~1300 | Tyranids: 
~5000 | Kruleboyz: 
~3500 | Lumineth Realm-Lords: 
~700
