In Memoriam: Bill Hicks
Posted on | August 19, 2009 | 2 Comments
- Cover of
There isn’t a lot to say about William Melvin Hicks that he didn’t say onstage. His official bio is, surprisingly, @ www.billhicks.com. It reads in part:
“Born December 16th, 1961 in Valdosta, Georgia, William Melvin Hicks was the youngest of three children. By the time he was seven, Bill had lived in four states before settling in Houston. As a child Bill yearned to be a comedian. He idolized Johnny Carson and the stand-up comedy of Woody Allen…Bill’s comedy (despite his own claims to the contrary) was not about hate or pessimism.
Bill was an unabashed optimist. He believed that most people were good at heart but evil forces were deliberately distracting us all from creating a better world using television, lies, tobacco and alcohol as opiates…this blunt, straightforward expression of these ideas could cause clashes with less enlightened, unsuspecting audiences. The result was sometimes dangerous; Bill had his ankle broken and a gun was pointed at him on stage. Despite these experiences, he refused to compromise his material and soldiered on…”
This video was put together by another fan of Bill Hicks using clips from the man’s performances to the soundtrack of a song dedicated to Hicks.
The renowned source of information on this hellhole that is the Web, wikipedia, reports Hicks’ posthumous legacy in part:
and were released posthumously in 1997 on the Voices imprint of the Rykodisc label. and were also re-released by Rykodisc on the same date.
In a 2005 poll to find The Comedian’s Comedian, fellow comedians and comedy insiders voted Hicks #13 on their list of “The Top 20 Greatest Comedy Acts Ever”. Likewise, in “Comedy Central Presents: 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time” (2004), Hicks was ranked at #19. In March 2007, Channel 4 ran a poll, “The Top 100 Stand-Up Comedians of All Time,” in which Hicks was voted #6.
Devotees of Hicks have incorporated his words, image and attitude into their own creations. Because of audio sampling, fragments of Hicks’ rants, diatribes, social criticisms and philosophies have found their way into many musical works…his influence on Tool is well documented; he “appears” on the Fila Brazillia album (1996) and on SPA’s self titled album SPA (1997), which are both dedicated to Hicks; the British band Radiohead’s second album The Bends (1995) is also dedicated to his memory. …
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November 10th, 2009 @ 7:41 am
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