RIP Larissa Strickland
Although the news has now become fairly well braodcast on other outlets I still wanted to take a moment to remember Larissa Strickland. Details are sketchy, but Strickland apparently OD’d on Xanax last month. I didn’t know you could do that, but whatever. Strickland was the lead singer in early 80’s Detroit band L-Seven, but is better known as the guitarist for the Laughing Hyenas. Her unique playing style helped define the Hyenas raging noise/blues post “whatever” sound over the course of a dozen years. Noisy and tortured, yet oddly beautiful. Lullaby and Goodnight, Larissa…
L-Seven - Clear Vision.mp3
Laughing Hyenas - Playground.mp3
Laughing Hyenas - Dedications to the One I Love.mp3
Laughing Hyenas - Candy.mp3
Laughing Hyenas - Everything I Want.mp3
Previously posted - L-Seven, “Public Animal #9″, and Covers - Stolen Tapes 92-94
Other tributes:
Metro Weekly page
Punk Vault (Lots of great comments)
Last Days of Man on Earth
Chunklet
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Very sad. The Laughing Hyenas was one of my first indie rock shows in a small club–Chicago’s Lounge Ax. They were scary and intense. Great guitarist.
Thanks for posting the L-Seven and Laughing Hyenas stuff. Larissa was a brilliant guitarist and I still remember the many Hyenas shows I saw in the 80’s and 90’s among the finest and most intense performances I’ve ever witnessed. Sad news.
Wow, that’s terrible news. I guess it means that Hyena’s reunion that I kept dreaming about won’t happen. I was fortunate enough to see them many times in Toledo, Detroit, and Ann Arbor. Larissa was an incredible guitarist, both live and in the studio. However, her troubles were evident even on stage. I saw her so out-of-it that she couldn’t play and vomitted on stage. On the other hand, I saw her light her guitar on fire. Anyway, sad story all around.
I was really hoping that they would play the T&G fest. I knew of no animosity with Cory (unlike the Butthole Surfers and The Necros) and Brannon was already going to be there with Negative Approach. I kept checking the listings but unfortunately it didn’t happen.
Musically the Hyenas were all that and a slice of pie. Hopefully people will remember her as a performer and go back to those records. I had the good fortune to have worked for the band as a roadie and later promoting their records. I’ll remember an unfailingly generous and supportive friend. In ways I can’t begin to count I owe Larissa, John, Kevin and Jim a lot.
My thoughts go out to her friends and family.
OL’ GIRL…
Larissa Strickland memorial mp3 blogpost here…….
Wow. As usual, that is really sad. I saw LH and L-Seven and heard tales while touring with Mule.
And you are right: the Xanax explanation is extremely unlikely given the general toxicity of sedative-hypnotics like benzodiazepines (although Xanax is slightly more toxic than the others). But I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t consider that general class of activity a likely contributer to her passing so soon.
I wish she would have lived a healthier life. Live healthy, folks.
I remember sharing a bill with them at CBGB–we were opening for the opening act (Drunken Boat) and we all just watched in amazement as LH hit the stage…Larissa looked beyond cool and just made her guitar rip the air like a dried up sheet. Gorgeous throat tightening splinters of sound!
Damn. Rest at last.
She got me out of hot water more times than I can remember. She influenced me like no other. Forget the sound of her guitar I hear her giggle.
[…] On a serious and sad note: Larissa Strickland, guitarist for the absolutely mind-bending Laughing Hyenas, died at some point over the past month. I’m sure you dig bands influenced by her / them. One of the most intense live experiences I’ve ever had. I saw them almost throw down with some redneck soundguy at a joint called The Outhouse many years ago; I’ll probably get to that story at some point. They sure seemed like one scary fucking band. Many years later, my band toured a few months with Mule, which formed out of a split from Laughing Hyenas, and I got to hear some great stories. […]
just can’t win
Twas Tuesday when I got the news of Larissa’s passing. I generally dont post stuff on places like this but in this case felt compeled to do so. I’ve been involved in the PR/HC scene in one capacity or another in Detroit since the Freezer-Clubhouse days. Many a energy filled night I spent seeing bands like L-seven,N.A. and the Hyenas. Those times and that energy helped shape the person I am today. Despite what others have said in regards to the “Life style”…i.e. substance abuse stuff in all of this, does that really matter? Does that diminish the the fact that Larissa was a strong women, extremely talanted, groundbreaking, kind and compassionate human being? The influnce and affect she had on countless others is reason to celebrate what she was in life..and I for one would like to see this done in public in our community…A memorial to celebrate her life. Maybe it’s already in the works??? Thanksgiving weekend is a time when alot of people “Come home” and would seem like good time to have a Detroit get-together to do so. John and Easy Action I belive will be coming home from touring about that time. If you would like to see something get together and would like to help do something in this regard…please leave a post here.
When I saw Easy Action a couple years ago, a friend of mine and I were chatting with John Brannon afterward. We were asking him about this cool, beat-to-hell Strat he had been playing during the show: obviously a vintage ax; certainly quite valuable. The eye-catching thing about it was that it seemed to be covered with autographs written in marker. The autographs belonged to the folks from Sonic Youth, and the guitar was formerly Larissa’s: she had given it to Brannon to repay a drug debt.
I was really hoping for a LHs reunion show at the T&G thing, too. I saw them in like 1986 at the Riviera with Killdozer and I think the Butthole Surfers. The LHs *slayed*. Larissa was so nonchalant and tough, hanging back to the edge of the stage and just throwing down a monstrous noise the entire night. Brannon ran around the front of the stage trying to stomp on people’s fingers.
It is *entirely* possible to overdose on Xanax. I did. Once you take too much, you go into zombie/sleepwalker mode, and God help you if during that mode, your zombie brain tells to go and take more. The last thing I remembered was lying on my bed reading at around 8-9 pm, just kind of relaxing. When I eventually came to, it was about 2 o’clock the following afternoon and I was lying on a stretcher in the emergency room, drinking charcoal slushies. My wife drove me there (I guess I was acting *very* loopy), and apparently I’d walked to and from the car, even cracked some jokes with the ER people…but I have absolutely no memory of it, just a black hole. It’s a deceptively potent and toxic medication; the doctors said that even though I was semi-conscious and somewhat lucid part of the time (not unlike someone’s who’s drunk off their ass, but not yet passed out), most benzodiazepine casualties occur in similar situations when a person will just suddenly have a seizure and keel over dead.
I’m sad about Larissa’s death, but maybe not so surprised, which makes it even worse.
thanks larissa.
I hadn’t seen Larissa in several years; last I heard she had headed down to FL to detoxify and was doing well. She will be sorely missed and as Kevin posted it’s not the sound of the guitar that will be missed, it’s the sound of her giggle… R.I.P. Larissa, I’ll down a big shot of Jim Beam as soon as I get out of work and think back on all the fun we had at all the different shows thru the years.
[…] According to Pitchfork, she may have passed away on November 4. There’s been no official word yet. Larissa was definitely her own person. She will be missed. If you haven’t heard her work on L-Seven or Laughing Hyenas, you owe it to yourself to check it out. Check out Something I Learned Today if you’re having trouble finding her stuff. […]
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For all those uniniated, Xanax is a Benzo parallel to Valium. Mixed with booze…it will get you fucked-up! I hung out with Larissa on several occasions in NYC. She was incredibly nice with an intelligent wit about her that was great. Sadly she is gone too early.