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the saddest longest weekend of our lives. deep silent pauses. staring into space. punctuated by more comments of disbelief. despair. tears.
that big empty hole in your stomach.
me, martha, and ken. team belew. now it's gone.
for 10 years we have been a constant
family. another phone call from a friend. another e-mail from a well-wishing fan.
mike keneally's e-mail said it all:
it begins to sink in. as impossible as it is to believe, we will never see ken latchney again. now it's monday morning. anytime now I should see ken's white suburu coming down the driveway. I should hear ken's king crimson greeting "haaauwwwww" from the stairwell to signal his arrival. I should walk downstairs and see him sitting at the computer in the studio control room. it was ken's studio really. we own it but ken made it his. like me, it was his favorite place to be. ken loved music. tom waits. mike keneally. les claypool. the grateful dead. phish. the residents. and most of all: frank zappa. ken had everything frank has ever done.
in his apartment the walls were covered in zappa and king crimson posters from around the world, some of them huge enough to cover half a wall. he had collected posters, t-shirts, and paraphernalia from hundreds of shows we had done together. ken was very proud of the work we had done. his living room was virtually a 5.1 listening room with an expansive couch. ken lived between his listening room couch and our studio.
he was, apart from his few close friends, a bit of a loner who kept to himself. a rare breed; a true bachelor. a few years back when ken was still attending our weekly friday night dinners at houston's restaurant he became friendly with a woman who worked at the bar. she pursued ken and at last he had the only "date" I ever knew him to have. later we all laughed when ken recounted his date: "I asked her over to my apartment and we listened to 4 hours of zappa!". as I said, ken was a true bachelor.
his passion was our work. ken never stopped refining his engineering prowess. after each weekend he would come in with a handful of notes, make some changes to various tracks, listen some more. ken was a worker bee. whatever it was that needed to be done, he would steadily go about doing it.
ken had pet names for certain people. mine was "cat daddy". martha's was "miss martha". he was a pillar in our lives. there was a sense of security in knowing he would be here most every day. his talent was so multi-faceted, he could do nearly everything for us. ken was a dedicated partner. a gentle person. I never saw him mad. he was cynical at times and acerbic like his hero frank, but not angry. some people misunderstood his quietly gruff manner, but several times in moments of real stress martha and I saw the deeply sensitive side of his nature.
he liked to go to concerts and he liked sharing his knowledge with people who came to our concerts. no matter what city we were in, he would set out walking taking funny pictures of whatever he saw. here is my favorite picture of ken taken in japan where we attended an exhibit of beatles photos.
unbelievable. just last week ken and I were touring across europe. mostly it was a terrific experience but there were several times when thoughtless people made it very stressful. the last concert we did together was the herzburg festival in germany. in a tent backstage, ken's face full of sweat, he looked at me and said "we're getting too old for this, cat daddy". little did I know how prophetic his words would be.
although the full report is not released yet, the coroner told his parents that he had "hypertension" and "clogged arteries" so it appears to have been a heart attack which caused ken's death. nonetheless I believe he loved the life he had. he loved traveling the world. he loved the music.
I look back and it seems we did a hundred years of work together.
saul zonana, jaguares, robert fripp, bill bruford, tony levin,The Construkction Of Light, graham elvis, mike hodges, mike gallaher, the irresponsibles, les claypool, danny carey, Side 1, Side 2, Side 3, rob fetters, chris arduser, bob nyswonger, Car Caught Fire, The Bears Live, bill janssen, Belewprints, eric slick, julie slick, ian wallace, The Power To Believe, pat mastelotto, trey gunn, Space Groove, sara hickman, rick altizer, Coming Attractions, kevin max, erick cole, al slavik, john prior, bela fleck, Op Zop Too Wah... on and on the list goes and none of it would be the same without ken. and his close friendships: john sinks, kent huffnagel, gary platt, tim cane, bill smith, bruce marshall, jim jewell. I know I'm leaving someone out, but please forgive me. to all of you who have sent condolences and e-mails I would like to thank you very much for your thoughts. ken died in his sleep wednesday night july 26, 2006. he is survived by his mother barbara, his father al, his brother mark, the two nephews he adored, and hundreds of people who knew him only through his work. in our hearts and memories he will live forever. adrian belew
from Rob
Fetters...
from Bob Nyswonger... His kindness to my wife, Laura was nothing less than amazing & she absolutely loved him. He took her under his wing at the out-of-town shows & let her stay with him by the board - I never had to worry about her well- being when I was on stage. Ken had the skills and the ears to handle about any engineering gig out there. He truly loved working closely with Adrian, and as a small part of a big whole, I am so blessed to have had the pleasure of knowing him, working with him, and being his friend. RIP Kengineer
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Adrian, Ken, & Robert
revised July 31, 2006
KEN'S CREDITS
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