**
Also, a fellow poster on digg.com shared a link to a memorial site for the victims here: http://www.dougjohnmichael.com/
NOTE: _I originally posted this to my old blog, July 19th, 2005, but have reposted it here after receiving an email about a Silkworm documentary in the works, with an accompanying trailer that gave me goose bumps. It reminds me of just how much their music meant to me, and how glorious they were live. I’ll post more on them in a bit, first I need to re listen and take them in again (you should too). Now playing, Silkworm “It’ll Be Cool”. _
I’d seen the band Silkworm (from Missoula, MT, then Seattle and later Chicago) since 1993, and anytime a drummer strips down to his shorts and then puts on oven mitts before playing…well, you know something good is going to happen. This was my introduction to the artful sounds of Silkworm, combining rock with an experimentation that I haven’t heard before or since. I stayed up with them, buying their cds as they were released and going to see them when they were around. I remember seeing them play Cicero’s in St. Louis in 1994, in a room with a capacity of 250, Andy’s guitar stack was taller than he was, and he is tall! Two friends I was with left the room and went upstairs to escape the volume, but my girlfriend (now wife) Mary and I stood our ground at the front and center table, drinking our Old Style, totally enthralled by the band, and Michael’s crazy, powerful drumming. I remember seeing them play Liberty Lunch during Sxsw 1997, and instead of playing all of their ‘hits’, they just played all the songs from their (then new) cd, “Developer” in it’s entirety, a bold, ballsy move I thought, and one I appreciated. It’s how they created and shared their art; they always did it their way. The last show I saw was at Sxsw 2004 with a friend who had never heard them before, and they were as great (and loud) as always. I always love sharing bands with others, but here was this established band of over 13 years with a history few bands can brag about, doing what they’d always done, playing their new songs. I have plenty of ‘favorite’ bands, but this was a really great one. The news of how he died makes this even more senseless. Here, reprinted from Punknews, is a complete writeup of the tragedy. “_Yesterday, Silkworm drummer Michael Dahlquist was killed in an auto accident _. " Wtf, how sad and senseless.