michael was an energetic, extremely friendly man, who was always upbeat, even on the rare occasion when he wasn't in a great mood.

and a hard hitting drummer who was always fun to watch.

i talked to him a while on sunday at the shellac show.

i can't believe he's gone.

my deep sympathy to the skwm family, and to michael's other friends and family.

All I can do is echo the same sentiments - I feel utterly stunned. So sad and sorry to hear about this, such awful and upsetting news. My sympathy and condolences to family, friends and anyone close to him - especially everyone here.

To the stars, Spoot.

Already posted this on the SKWM board. Sorry. Some final thoughts...



I spoke w/ Michael at all of the SKWM shows that I saw. He always struck me as being the greatest guy, so full of life and energy, kind and talkative. I left all those shows feeling very refreshed and inspired by his enthusiasm.

Certainly my favorite aspect of the band. I respected him a great deal.

It is still so shocking and tragic that we've lost this great man.

RIP, spoot. Still have those drumstick splinters somewhere.

This is horrifying. I didn't know the others at all, but Michael was always a gentleman whenever I encountered him (mostly at shows, but once I was on a business trip to Seattle and saw him on the street, taking a break from work). A really wonderful, musical drummer and a witty person over the 'net. By all accounts, a really good guy, too. It's a shock to think of someone so full of life struck down so young.

Our condolences to friends and family of everyone lost.

Oh my god.


. . .


This is terrible. I too am deeply saddened to hear this. Michael, aka "Spoot," seemed almost preternaturally decent to me. And funny.




















Death, be not proud.

This is terrible.

My deepest sympathies, Tim and Andy.

I loved watching him drum. Not only because he was one hell of a hard-hitting drummer (with a fantastic sense of "groove"), but watching how he could hardly contain smiling from ear to ear everytime was truly inspirational. Also, his tour journals on SKWM's site were great reads (particularly, his "restaurant reviews"). Here's one of my favorites:

"By way of describing the show in NYC, I'll tell a little story about the Boston show. Towards the end of the night in Boston, we played Don't Make Plans, which has a long, screeching guitar solo in the middle of it. This part generally starts sort of quiet-ish and gets much louder towards the end. In Boston, for some reason, I was spending much of my time playing with my eyes fully closed. Maybe the sound was good? I'm not sure, but I kept my eyes closed for much of the night. Usually if I do this I'm always hitting the sides of things with my sticks and can't hold on to anything, but that night it seemed to work out okay. So we're playing Don't Make Plans, Andy started the lengthy guitar solo... and maybe this is totally inappropriate to say, but it sounded so gorgeous that I closed my eyes, tried to ignore everything I was doing, and just enjoyed the sounds I was hearing. I tried to stay as much out of the way as I could, just play what sounded right in the midst of all that I was hearing. Something about the sound struck me, and ... and I got lost in the music. It was something else, the solo lasted maybe a minute or two and I was, honestly, in a state of bliss the entire time.

Before last night's show at North Six I told this to Andy and Tim. I was excited, but not too surprised when Tim told me that he'd felt the same way during that song. He said he closed his eyes, and when he opened them at the end of the solo he found himself facing in a direction he did not expect to be facing."

FYI, I posted this on the SKWM site just now.

Thanks a lot, you guys. I can't bear to read the posts thoroughly right now, but I will do so eventually. It means a lot to me and everyone else who knew the guy.

Also, Doug and John were fucking top-notch people as well. A horrible, horrible shame.
========================
Hello all,

First of all, thanks for your thoughts.

Second of all, here is the sum total of what we know right now:

Michael and our friends John Glick and Doug Meis were traveling from Shure to someplace for lunch.

They were behind a car at a light.

A young woman, bent on doing injury to herself, ran into the back of the car at a high rate of speed.

Evidently, all three guys were killed instantly.

I'm sure more details will come out over time. But those are the facts as I understand them presently.

I don't have much else to say. Except, again, thank you, all of you.

Love,

Tim

Obviously I didn't know these guys, but my thoughts are with everyone here that did.

salut! Spoot

To all of you who knew them well, I give you my most sincere condolences. I did not know them personally, but rather enjoyed Michael’s posts.




I guess I don’t have anything else to say. It’s just very sad that the carelessness of one person can bring such immense pain to so many.


Allen

connor wrote:
"By way of describing the show in NYC, I'll tell a little story about the Boston show. Towards the end of the night in Boston, we played Don't Make Plans, which has a long, screeching guitar solo in the middle of it. This part generally starts sort of quiet-ish and gets much louder towards the end. In Boston, for some reason, I was spending much of my time playing with my eyes fully closed. Maybe the sound was good? I'm not sure, but I kept my eyes closed for much of the night. Usually if I do this I'm always hitting the sides of things with my sticks and can't hold on to anything, but that night it seemed to work out okay. So we're playing Don't Make Plans, Andy started the lengthy guitar solo... and maybe this is totally inappropriate to say, but it sounded so gorgeous that I closed my eyes, tried to ignore everything I was doing, and just enjoyed the sounds I was hearing. I tried to stay as much out of the way as I could, just play what sounded right in the midst of all that I was hearing. Something about the sound struck me, and ... and I got lost in the music. It was something else, the solo lasted maybe a minute or two and I was, honestly, in a state of bliss the entire time."

Thanks so much for posting this, Connor. I couldn't remember where it was to be found on the SKWM site, but it was one of the first things I thought of upon hearing the news, for some reason.