Thursday, February 25, 2010

R.I.P. Tommy Atkins

Sometimes you wake up and the sky is blue and the sun is shining, birds chirp and life seems good. Sometimes you wake up and find out that a friend of yours far away has died. Tommy Atkins was the brilliant bassist behind the bands Yeti and more recently, The Great Tyrant. He was always kind, gentle, thoughtful, and more so, he turned me on to many  great albums that I will always associate with him (All The Pretty Little Horses for one.). I will miss him. This absolutely sucks. 

17 comments:

Anthony said...

Sad... srry bro.

JG said...

oh fuck, this is terrible.I'd been in contact with him from time to time a while back as Yeti were winding up.Terrible,terrible,terrible.RIP.

Jamie said...

Thanks for paying tribute to one of Fort Worth's finest. He has left a whole in the heart of this town and will never be forgotten. I love you Tommy and I hope you are at rest. FORT WORTH ZEUL!

Peter Santellan said...

That sucks.

Unknown said...

Truly sad day out here in DFW, The Great Tyrant have always been my favorite local band. and I had the pleasure of opening for them a couple of times. Tommy had impeccable taste in music and so much more. Watching him play bass was always a true pleasure. Going to miss him.

RIP TOMMY ATKINS

Motoghost said...

Sorry to hear that Aesop.

Anonymous said...

You seem to know a lot of people that die, my sympathy goes out to you.

Unknown said...

I'm sorry Aesop. I lived in Dallas/Ft. Worth a few years ago at the time of the death of another very well known and dearly loved local musician. He wasn't part of the metal scene, but I remember the outpouring being overwhelming and sincere. I'm sure that the metal community will treat this with the same fierceness of support.

Hails to Tommy Atkins. Never heard either band, but I'll raise a glass here in about 20 minutes to the man.

Greg said...

He and I had been in touch off-and-on over the last few years, traded a lot of music. Never met him in person. He was kind and generous and always had a supportive word. We traded some long ass e-mails discussing Shub-Niggurath, Igor Wakhevitch... I had hoped to see The Great Tyrant live someday.

I'll continue to try to turn people on to Yeti and The Great Tyrant, and remember him fondly. R.I.P. Tommy.

Asa said...

Condolences, Aesop. We're in somewhat similar places of mind now...

Anonymous said...

What were some of his favorite albums?

Aesop said...

Anything bu Coil, Man IS the Bastard, Current 93, Amon Duul...

Robert Nowhere said...

heard about this from another friend of his on FB today...sadly, this was my introduction to Yeti...we needed to hear more from him, and this is a tragedy, indeed

FAKE DADA said...

yup. it's just fuckin' horrible, ain't it?

i also put up a tribute thingy of tommy's stuff on my blog at http://circlemeetssquare.blogspot.com/

Colin said...

Wow, that really, really sucks... Yeti is one of my favorite bands ever! RIP

Anonymous said...

Oh fuck.

I knew him too, and this is how I just found out.

Anonymous said...

i just found this site a little to late i am his brother josh and we never saw eye to eye on alot of things but he was a great musician and i loved him he would probably find this whole thing ironic