While this site was down, a tragedy befell a young musician and his extended family and friends in the bay area music community when
Matthew Sperry was struck by a pickup truck and killed while riding his bicycle at an intersection near the Emeryville-Oakland border on Stanford Avenue.
I didn’t know Matthew, but I had several friends who knew and loved him, and played music with him, and loved his playing. A page at Scot Hacker’s Birdhouse blog has become the de facto tribute page for Matthew.
Several of us went to see Mike Watt in San Franciso on Saturday and when told about the accident Watt dedicated his encore to Sperry, a fellow bass player and cyclist.
There was a musical memorial at Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland, and there is a memorial concert in the works. Hacker has also now set up a dedicated memorial web page for Matthew at matthewsperry.org:
matthewsperry.org. Registered and set up matthewsperry.org on birdhouse hosting. Very raw for now – design and lots more content coming. But posted immediately the call for witnesses and info on the upcoming memorial concert. The concert info has also gone out on PR Newswire and is all over the net – here it is on Yahoo! … [birdhouse.org]