According to the BBC, the Northern Chamber Orchestra is working with students from two local schools to compose a symphony based on three Joy Division songs. Orchestra education coordinator Helen Quayle tells the BBC, “The style of music is quite sparse and very simple. The kids can understand and take elements of that and write for a string quartet using the same technique.”

The symphony is only one of the many Curtis-celebrating events going down in Macclesfield. There will also be an exhibit, curated by writer Jon Savage, featuring posters, setlists, and letters from Curtis, including one where he calls the Joy Division masterpiece Closer “a disaster”. It’ll run July 29 to August 7 at the 1813 Sunday School Heritage Centre. Tourists will also be able to buy a map, which will feature locations like the house where Curtis hanged himself.

Festival director Richard de Peyer tells the BBC, “Macclesfield has never had the opportunity to celebrate Ian Curtis’s work in a way which benefits the communities of the town and also attracts music fans from far and wide. This summer seemed like the right moment to do that.” (based on a story from Pitchfork)

According to Rolling Stone, Aaron Zych, a manager at the Morrison Hotel Galleries in New York City, confirmed Marshall’s death on Wednesday. Zych says Marshall had been scheduled to appear at another gallery on Wednesday night to promote his new book with celebrity photographer Timothy White and apparently died alone in his sleep in his New York City hotel room.

Marshall had more than 500 record album covers to his credit. He began his career as a professional photographer in 1959. Marshall was given unparalleled access to rock’s biggest artists, including the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, the Who, Miles Davis and Ray Charles. He was the only photographer granted backstage access for the Beatles’ final full concert at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park in 1966.

Marshall was born in Chicago in 1936 and grew up in San Francisco. He purchased his first camera in high school and started documenting the artists and musicians in San Francisco’s burgeoning beat scene. After serving in the Air Force, Marshall returned home, where he had a chance encounter with John Coltrane: when Coltrane asked him for a lift, Marshall obliged and the jazz legend returned the favor by letting Marshall shoot nine rolls of film. Soon after, Marshall moved to New York and was hired by Atlantic and Columbia to shoot their artists at work in the studio, including Dylan and Charles. When Marshall returned to the San Francisco in the late Sixties he produced what are known as his most classic works, taking hundreds of photographs of the Dead, Joplin, Jefferson Airplane and Santana.

Presenting Marshall with the MOJO Image Award at 2005′s MOJO Honours List ceremony, fellow photographer Anton Corbijn said, “I like myths and I like truths, but above all I love someone who can capture both in one photograph.”

Marshall, who had no children, was passionate about his work up until the end. “I have no kids,” he said. “My photographs are my children.”

Sparklehorse was one of the first bands I photographed for Ice Cream Man. I remember being enthralled by his wispy, blowing hair, his focus and ease. I had to go and revisit my shots, hoping to see something that would help me make sense of it all.

Each time I hear of a death of someone who has touched me, it’s like a another little strand that ties the world together is gone. We’ll miss you, Mark.

In a statement, his wife Sally Mundy said: “Jake was always a classic bike enthusiast, he loved sailing though he was invariably seasick. Music was central to Jake’s life.”

I met Jake several times when the Bunnymen toured in the late 80′s. He was always the friendly guy who would spare a moment for the babbling star-struck American teenager who couldn’t fathom how she managed to get backstage.

In 1988, when I was 20, I made a pilgrimage to Liverpool to meet the Bunnymen and see their homeland. A clerk at the local record store must have found me amusing. He let me know where to find the Bunnymen’s headquarters, just up the hill and over an ice cream shop. Two years previous I had spent the entire summer transcribing the lyric’s to the Bunnymen’s entire catalog with the help of my new typewriter and a small cassette walkman. My sophomore year at MIT my term project had been designing the layout of a lyric book on a Mac II. When I ran the bell at the Bunnymen’s office that August afternoon, I had my hand colored handbound book of transcribed lyrics in hand.

You can guess who answered the door. Jake. Of course he didn’t remember me, but he cordially invited me in, explaining he was the only one about that afternoon. He cheerfully gave me a tour of the Bunnymen’s office, showing me the rehearsal space, the merch, the guitars, etc. About ten minutes into my private tour Ian arrived. Jake introduced me, but he paid me no real mind. I tried to peaque Ian’s interest by telling him about my lyrics project and I proudly handed over my only copy of “Songs to Learn and Sing.” He and Jake thumbed through it and started to giggle. Not in a disrespectful way, but in an amused wouldn’t-it-be-funny-if-we-were-singing-these-lyrics kind of way. Ian’s interest lasted a mere minute and he was on his way. Jake continued to answer my questions and show me about. He was also kind enough to recommend a pub, as well as a night club that I might like to visit that night. Of course I visited both. Jake made me trip to Liverpool complete, and for that I will forever be grateful.

My interactions with Jake were brief, but I found a beautiful tribute from a close friend, Bernie Connor, in his weekly podcast. I wanted to share it. Bernie, I couldn’t find any contact info for you, so I hope you don’t mind me including your wonderful tribute here.

my good friend jake brockman has died in the course of his adventures. he was the most beautiful caring and optimistic person i ever met. people like jake gave us all hope, he lit up the world he was put on to live.

i first met jake in 1980, gary dwyer (the teardrop explodes drummer) and myself were tripping on acid and weedling our way round liverpool city centre looking for something to do. we eventually ended up in the zoo records office in chicago buildings, just around the corner from probe. inside we encountered the bills drummond and butt plus this pixie like thing with long straggly hair and a long straggly beard, decked out in an raf greatcoat and sitting on a table cross-legged. this turned out to be jake who cut a rather strange figure in liverpool in 1980 looking like that. realising instantly that me and daddio were tripping our tits off he picked up an acoustic guitar and began serenading us with these very wonderful made-up songs that defused a con fused and psychedelic situation.

that was the beginning of lifelong friendship with this most gentle, caring, loving soul on the planet. not long after his arrival in liverpool he became roadie, keyboard player and general factotum to echo & the bunnymen, completely indispensible and more a part of the band than thge musicians and the music they made. from this lofty position grew his friendship with pete de freitas, they took on the world as a psychedelic dangermouse and penfold, two poshers with a arid thirst for life and all that could offer them. there’s was a world of italian motorcycles, hand-made leather shoes and the finest marijuana avauilable to humans, every moment spent with them was like an eternity on planet whack. a knockabout series of high laughs, startling conversation and to be honest, a dazzling insight to how the other half lives.

enter whittaker.

their adoption of former deaf school drummer, tim whittaker as lysergic guru and artist in residence was a master-stroke. tim brought to the table an earthy lancashire witticism that was desperately needed to prevent them from becoming a modern day jeeves and wooster. this unholy trinity designed the course of my life in my early twenties; music, philosophy, fine art and the concept of the ever changing world were constantly hovering in the air around our heads and the explosion of thought that was contextualized for me by jake and put into a language we could all understand.

i never learned to do anything practical at all, when he used to live round the corner he did everything for me, putting up shelves, building the children’s bunk-beds, hell i even called him once to ask him to change a lightbulb for me. he came and did it, of course he did, that’s what sort of beautiful cat he was, nothing was ever too much. he directed me over the phone on how to change a washer on the bathroom tap, when it was glaringly obvious that i was woefully inept at even that, he came round and did it himself. beautiful.

when pete died in 1989 and when tim died in 1996 jake was a lost but rock solid soul to cling to. he took it all in his stride and in his philosophical way he put our hearts and minds at ease. as i write this, i wish he was here to make us all feel a little more secure, we could certainly do with it. and right here, right now i can’t believe that all three have gone, a chapter in liverpool’s cultural history closed forever. hopefully in the otherworld somewhere the divine thunderbolt corps are rearing for their reunion gig. good luck, chaps.

i can’t really think of anything more magnanimous to say, jake was a good friend, someone i thought would outlive us all by sheer beauty and determination. his spirit and his smiling face will live with me forever, i’m glad it’ll never go away.

he really was a friend of mine and shall miss him for all time. and man, that feels bad.

my love goes out to his wife, sally and everybody who ever came into contact with him, their lives will be better for it.

this week: we lost our co-pilot, navigator and captain of the ship. all at once.

love, man. x x x

We’ll miss you, Jake.

P.S. — I’ve also found several other articles and online tributes to Jake, which I’ve linked below.

• Liverpool Daily Post
• NME
  
• Strangeglue Blog

• Isle of Man Today
• Prefix Magagine
  
• sideburnmag.blogspot.com

Jake and Sally Brockman photo and Jake at sunset photo courtesy of sideburnmag.blogspot.com

Tom Wilkes gained national prominence when his advertising firm landed the 1967 Monterrey International Pop Music Festival. He designed and created all the graphics, posters and other print materials for the festival, including the iconic psychedelic poster that was printed on foil stock paper.

According to his daughter, Katherine Fotch, “He won an award from Reynolds aluminum for the most creative use of aluminum foil. He was always very proud of that.”

Music producer and festival organizer Lou Adler said Wilkes “caught the spirit of the time” with his graphics for the ’67 Pops Festival.

“Most of the artwork in that particular culture was coming out of San Francisco, and what Tom did was he took a San Francisco look, or niche, and made it international,” Adler said. “You can see a lot of the posters from that period and say, ‘Oh, that’s the ’60s.’ With Tom, it isn’t dated. There’s a very special look to it.”

Wilkes designed or provided the art direction or graphic design for scores of classic album covers. As an example, he designed the covers for the Rolling Stones’ “Beggars Banquet,” Neil Young’s “Harvest,” Eric Clapton’s “Eric Clapton,” Joe Cocker’s “Mad Dogs & Englishmen” and George Harrison’s “Concert for Bangladesh” and “All things Must Pass.”

Wilkes was a photographer as well, and often shot the images that appeared on the album covers. The most infamous of which was the cover photo of Joplin for her 1971 “Pearl” album. According to Fotch, “He was the last person to see her alive”

In 1973, Wilkes won a Grammy Award for best recording package for the Who’s rock opera “Tommy.”

Back then, there wasn’t the huge music hype machine that we have today. When you when into a record store, you were often flying blind. David Fricke, a senior writer at Rolling Stone magazine explains “the magic and the sort of importance of album design was to be able to catch the eye, to try and get a sense of what the music and the personalities were inside and also make you want to buy it.”

Wilkes, Fricke said, “was able to capture a certain essence of what was on the record and the person who made it.

According to the LA Times Obituary, A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. today at First Presbyterian Church of Orange, 191 N. Orange St., Orange.

Instead of flowers, the family asks that donations in Wilkes’ memory be made to fund ALS research and sent to the ALS Assn. Development Department, 27001 Agoura Road, Suite 250, Calabasas, CA 91301.