BS: No more Shox

Subject: Obituary
From: Crowhugger
Date: 12 Aug 00 - 03:38 AM

Goodbye, Steve. I'll miss your wacky self when I can afford to insure my bike again. I could always trust your mechanical advice.

excerpts from The Toronto Star, Aug. 7, 2000:
"Friends say the smoke-filled rock bars, jazz clubs and concert halls of Toronto are where Stephen Wilcox felt most alive. That is where his transformation into Shox Johnson - an old-school jazz hipster known for his tacky outfits and quick wit - first began.
"Stephen Ross Wilcox died recently in Halifax, Nova Scotia, after a lengthy battle with stomach cancer. He was 44.
"During the late 1970s and and early 1980s, at the height of the disco and punk eras, Shox Johnson and his Jive Bombers rocked Toronto's after-hours clubs and bars. The nine-piece band's zany stunts and spontaneity, coupled with their hard-hitting brand of jazz and rhythm and blues, secured it something of a cult following...originators of the big band revival that is seeing a resurgence in the present day.
"...He had a PhD from the University of the Streets...a very creative, spontaneous, intelligent guy...He would be given four new songs and he's show up the next day and know all the lyrics.
"...He owned a motorcycle, would race occasionally and also served as race announcer at Shannonville (east of Toronto).
"Donations in his memory can be made by mail to the Scotia Festival of Music, put on by his brother Chris, at 6181 Lady Hammond Rd., Halifax, NS B3K 2R9. A memorial bash featuring surviving members of the Jive Bombers is planned for September at the Pilot Tavern, scene of many of their historic gigs."

Details about his orphaned musical instruments were not provided.

Subject: RE: BS: No more Shox
From: Willie-O
Date: 16 Aug 00 - 12:10 AM

Steve was a good friend of mine a long, long time ago--before he was Shox Johnson. One of the most colourful, exceedingly intelligent and often infuriating characters I've ever known. (Yup, he would have been right at home in this crew. Knew his music, too.)

I'll miss him, although unlike Crowhugger, not for his mechanical advice (which caused the rear end of my old bread truck to blow up--hey, he always sounded like he knew what he was talking about). Well, we were young then.

Hadn't seen him since 1984. Feeling pretty old now.

The Purple Hawks. "We knew how to rock." So long buddy.

Willie-O

Subject: RE: BS: No more Shox
From: Crowhugger
Date: 16 Aug 00 - 03:32 AM

Sadness shared becomes a sweeter sorrow. Thanks, Willie-O.

CH.