Over the holiday break, Seattle's music scene lost two major figures to death: Anton Bomb (aka Michael A. Tippett), a fixture in the city's underground electronic-music clubs, and Elijah Nelson, who played bass for respected death-metal group Black Breath.
Their passings spurred an outpouring of sorrow and glowing eulogies on social media that testified to how profoundly they'd impacted their respective musical worlds and enriched the lives of the people they'd encountered. Tippett and Nelson inhabited two vastly different cultural landscapes, but they both illuminated their spheres with their prodigious talents and inspirational and generous personalities.
Tippett moved to Seattle 24 years ago and quickly became a force for joy through the sheer dint of his irrepressible spirit and energy. Every scene needs people like Tippett to thrive; his unbounded optimism and support buoyed countless events, at which he served as MC and dance-floor motivator.
In an interview with me conducted shortly after he'd been diagnosed with the Stage 3 cancer that later ended his life, Tippett related that he'd done everything in Seattle's music scene from managing nightclubs to mopping floors. He mentioned that he'd performed in front of 200,000 people, singing his own electronic music on a parade float for Gay Pride, was corralled into doing performance art onstage with Rabbit in the Moon before 30,000 people at the Stadium Exhibition Center, built "altars and sacred shrines for Starborne's Oracle Gatherings," and created and curated his own "sci-fi spiritual future Cabaret nights" called Club YES, which he took to Burning Man. He also performed and toured with Shameless and other music crews, and toiled as a "flyer monkey" for Re-bar for over a decade, "as a labor of love to help the venue and our scene stay healthy and strong."
In addition, Tippett was a painter, clairvoyant, bartender, talent buyer, promotional consultant for Red Bull, a charity MC, and a non-profit advocate. "The Emerald City has been so very kind to me, and I cherish it with all my heart," he said. "And I consider it my duty to act as a steward for it. I have honestly helped stop multiple rapes, a ring of car thieves, multiple abuses on the streets, and generally keep a good relationship with the Seattle Police Department for such crises as they arise."
Tippett's life will be celebrated Thursday, January 9, at Re-bar.
Besides his strong bass playing for Black Breath, whose music Trent Moorman described in The Stranger as "an abduction. A taking of your soul by unholy tones," Elijah Nelson worked at Capitol Hill record store Everyday Music for 10 years. (By the way, his tenure started shortly after mine ended there in 2004.) Judging from the tributes on Facebook, he was universally loved by his many co-workers. Although he could appear intimidating with his tallness, voluminous mane, headband, and wizardly facial hair, Nelson was by all accounts a gentle, friendly soul with an avid interest in pinball; Add-a-Ball was a favorite spot of his. Nelson was 40 at the time of his death; no cause has been reported.
A memorial for Nelson will take place Saturday, January 11, at the American Legion Hall, 209 Monroe Street, in Port Townsend.
