Negativland’s Richard Lyons Dead at 57

Richard Lyons, a founding member of experimental Bay Area band Negativland is dead. He died on his 57th birthday, April 19, from complications due to nodular melanoma, as the band wrote in a Facebook post. He first fought off the cancer more than 12 years ago, but it had recently returned. Read their full tribute here.

Lyons was born in 1959 in Castro Valley, California. He formed Negativland in the late ’70s with Mark Hosler, and worked on the band’s most well-regarded albums such as 1983′s A Big 10-8 Place, 1987′s Escape From Noise, and 1991′s U2 EP. He was also known for the band’s “Over the Edge” radio program, which was compiled over nine editions and an album of live recordings. 

The band wrote that Lyons was joined at his nursing facility by former, current, and peripheral Negativland members for a birthday celebration on the day of his death. “With photos being taken of people taking photos of phones, phone speakers going right and left (with a dog barking on one of them), and some new age harp being played, the afternoon felt like an Actual Negativland Performance for the ages,” they write. They shared a recording of “Happy Birthday” being sung at the celebration, which you can listen to below. 

Last year, Negativland’s Don Joyce and Ian Allen both passed away. 

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