Fellow fans,
I'm sorry to tell you all that Ketih Allison, longtime member of this group (from the very start, I believe) and a Television/Verlaine/Lloyd fan as committed as any I've ever met, died yesterday, leaving behind his wife and three sons.
His wife, Tania, reached out last night to let me know, and wanted me to let his friends know, too. I knew Keith had had a rough hospitalization over the summer, and then recovered, but did not know his health had taken a turn for the worse recently.
I never met Keith but feel like I know him, having traded hundreds of emails and messages with him over the past two decades. Almost exactly 20 years ago, we were working together on the Carried Away trading site, writing back and forth to each other, sometimes several times a day, as we spent weeks perfecting that site. Keith did beautiful artwork for Carried Away, and went on to do some truly outstanding work for various "releases" CA enabled over the years - dozens if not over a hundred in all. Even as recently as this year, Keith put together artwork for the newly-discovered 1981 Roxy show and The Night Is Brief compilation.
Tania tells me that Keith's sons were with him at the end, and that the last two things he listened to were "Marquee Moon", followed by "Refugees" by Van der Graaf Generator.
I will miss Keith in the days and years to come, as I'm sure many of you (some of whom were fortunate to meet him!) will too.
Phil