No kidding. I'm equally irate about this.

I've only talked to him a handful of times since I joined this board but he was totally awesome with me. And from all the stories I've read in this thread, the videos and the pictures, the guy was obviously absolutely electric. It's a god damn shame.

I'm gutted too man. I've never met you in person, but feel free to come up to me on the 17th and say hi dude. We should've talked to each other by now I think.

One of my mom's old friends told me one time why she thought the good die young, and I think it applied perfectly to Adrian.

He was too good for this fucking place.

beeeeer



manhattan hooters girl


time square in the snow! he loved the heroes poster & wanted a picture with it...


PJ dance!!!




brooklyn subway


WILLOW

I really wouldn't know most of you people here if HBM hadn't introduced me to Adrian just a little over 7 years ago.

I'd really just like to say I'm a better person for having known him and that has been an honour.

And he made my silly avatar.

I bit he would have posted....

"where are the pics ?"

best appreciation thread EVER!

Here is an awesome picture of the 3 of you together

Okay, so the first time I went to visit Adrian in NYC two years ago, we went CD shopping. It was a little disappointing -- some major stores had closed, and what did remain carried the same stuff I can get in Toronto.

Then he mentioned he wanted to visit Hospital Productions.

What the hell is Hospital Productions?, I wondered.

Well, it's a tiny music shop that's in the basement of a reggae shop. The music is beyond obscure -- lots of noise/drone/electronic bleakness. This is the underground of the underground... and fittingly, when we get there, we find that entering the place is not unlike going on a Lord of the Rings cave-dwelling adventure.

Because after we navigate our way to the back of the reggae shop, past worn old boxes of worn old vinyl, we see a small hole in the floor and a ladder leading down beside the cash register of Hospital Productions.

The ladder was so steep, Adrian momentarily lost his nerve. If he would have fallen and hurt himself, I have no idea how he would have come back up. They would have had to rip open the floors.

Anyway, he goes down. I follow.

Nice place. But honest to God... I've never heard of a single act in the racks. Leave it to Adrian to risk life and limb to check out a music store that belongs in a Terry Gilliam movie.

I think Adrian bought one or two things and ascended back into the real world.

This pic (which I think is inverted -- I remember the ladder on the left, not the right) doesn't do the daunting drop justice. The ladder was almost straight down.



Wonder what their insurance costs are like.

I didn't know him except from here on the board. But it's crazy to think he's gone. But after reading all these responses, I hope Adrian knew he was this well loved by all of you while he was alive. Because for that, I think he surely would not have felt he was missing anything.

Screw pouring beer out for the fallen... and drink 'em back for the bunny!

Farewell.

This is simply so hard to believe. I keep thinking that it's a bad dream.

dude his brother came on msn i nearly had heart attack thinking it was all just a dream

Hospital Productions is awesome. I love that label.

rip brother.

Rab, thank you I only had the shopped version of that.

It still blows my mind because we were working so hard on the album release these past few months and then the albums got pressed just before the weekend. I talked to him on friday and he said he was really sick so I told him to get some sleep...

He would always tell me how much his mom and fiance enjoyed my music and there was one song in particular that he loved because it helped him through the passing of his father. it's called "entre la terre et le ciel" which means "between earth and sky" and we discussed how the song represented the souls journey as it leaves earth and heads for the sky. he told me he wanted that song titled tatooed on his arm next to his dad's name and he even asked me to send him a 13 sec sample to put on his ringtone. I actually spent all day sunday working on that song with some musicians, unaware that while we played adrian's soul was taking that journey...

When I would tell my mom that I was working with a guy who started a label to release the album she was always worried he was trying to screw me, nothing could be further from the truth.

Thanks for the support Adrian, you are a true legend

Adrian always treated me very nicely on this forum and he was the first one I took interest in for being a cool dude when I first joined in 2001.

RIP my friend.

I never met the guy......but DAMN! what an inspiration! what a good example of how to live, and do it right!

his presence will be missed!

I've been in shock the last 24 hours over this. Utter disbelief. Adrian was one of the greats, and I was so lucky to get to know him...we were all so lucky.

Reading all these tributes tonight has helped to raise my spirits though. So much love and fond memories being shared. The BB is a great community, and I will be there in January to raise a pint for The Energizer.

I have so much to thank him for. I joined Unrestrained! in 1999 as a copyeditor, dealing mostly with Adam at first, and then the Energizer-style phone calls started, and continued until last Thursday. He really made me feel part of the U! team, although I was way out on the West Coast. He encouraged me with my writing, letting me interview any left-field prog band I was into at the time, and giving me cover story assignments because he thought I was up to the job.

He was the complete opposite of me—outgoing and frenetic as opposed to my painfully shy self—but those are the kind of people I love to be around. Whenever I was in Toronto, he always made time to take me around town, hauling vinyl, loading me up with promos...many of you had the same experiences with him, and that's what made Adrian so awesome. He'd treat everybody the same and be so generous with his time.

So many great memories. A bright light has gone out, but the sparks he sent off will live on in all of us. Thank you, Adrian.

Rob

I have a lot of fond memories of Adrian that go right back to my first every in-person interview I did, with Fear Factory back in 1993 or 1994 at Molson Amphitheatre. Adrian was there interviewing them for M.E.A.T. or BW&BK with his old room-mate Kim and I was interviewing them for Aggressive Rock on CKLN. I was a little nervous, having never done this stuff before. He cracked a few jokes while we waited and was telling me to just remember they're just a bunch of dudes that play music. I never forgot that.

The next great memory I have of Adrian is from July 1997. I had just moved back to Canada from working at Relapse and went to visit Ed Balog, who was still doing Black Mark Productions for North America. I was just there a little while when Adrian, Adam, Bruni and Alex Ristic all showed up and we went to some little English pub behind the building Balog was in and drank beers and talked metal for the rest of the afternoon. They asked me about Relapse, I got more info on their then brand-new Unrestrained! (issue #2 had just come out) and I was impressed that these guys were gonna show the initiative to start their own magazine. That took balls. I was hoping they'd make it to 12 issues (most zines die then) -- here we are some 11 years later.

A few years ago Adrian called me at work out of the blue at work to ask me to write for Unrestrained!. I had mentioned to Adam back in1997 I'd be interested if they needed some extra writers and Adrian said 'well, it took a while for us to get back but are you interested?' with a chuckle. 7 years was a while but of course I said yes. He was always very supportive - and very understanding that I had to put my young family first. I appreciated that.

I'll never forget going to New England in 2006 with Kevi-metal, MPB, Voracious Soul and having a killer time. I had never realized just how funny Adrian was until that weekend. He had me in stitches, and I think by the end of the weekend he was digging my dry, twisted sense of humour as well.

Since then I have had the chance to work more with Adrian, writing for his magazine and also doing publicity for him in Canada on both Endorphins and Burn To Black through my day job. He was always a pleasure to deal with, always joking on the phone and always talking two million miles an hour during conversations. We were just talking on the phone on Thursday and Friday of last week, about his new Musk Ox release that I was going to be helping him with in Canada and about a last minute article I sent him earlier that week for U! when another story fell through. He was always so upbeat, so positive and so funny on the phone that I always looked forward to him calling.

I can't believe he's gone. Wow. It freaked me out so bad last night I couldn't sleep. Kevi told me when we went to do our radio show and I kept screwing up all night during our three hours on the air. We kept talking and thinking about MPB, but whoever called Kevin with the news asked it be kept secret until the family knew more info. That was tough.

My sincerest condolences to his family, his fiance, his close friends and to everyone that crossed his path. I didn't know him as well or as intimately as a lot of you did, but I will miss him and never forget what he did for metal and what he did for me. That's the part he never knew. I wish I would have told him.

R.I.P.

My linked pics in this thread are now in the photobucket account Lynne made for Adrian.

Also, on pages 2 and 3 are a bunch of pics which must not have loaded correctly. Please check your photos to see if they are yours. EDIT: They are .gif files...so whoever put those in there, go check them.

Lynne, if you make a sub-album in there of Adrian shops, I have a bunch to contribute.

here are some photos from my trip to NY a summer or two ago:




classic, beer in one hand, phone firmly pressed to his ear in the other




telling me about how metal the ferris wheel we were on was.


wearing children's baseball helmets. MPB insisted




impersonating M&Ms





in a costume store. we were reprimanded for taking photographs but go this last one in!



what a guy. i'm so lucky to have known him.