R.I.P. Marmoset's LonPaul Ellrich

Billboard was saddened to learn today that LonPaul Ellrich, a longtime heavyweight of the music scenes in Bloomington, Ind., and Indianapolis, passed away on May 7. Ellrich is the second major scene figure to pass away in recent months, following Evan Farrell last December.

Services will be held tomorrow (May 14) in Indianapolis. An online tribute is underway on MusicalFamilyTree.com, a hub for past and present bands from the Indiana scene. A PayPal fund has also been established for Ellrich's son Rupert.

Ellrich played or worked on projects from an array of Indiana acts, including Sardina, the Mysteries Of Life, the United States Three (he was particularly close with that band's Vess Ruhtenberg), June Panic, Some Girls, Jorma Whitaker, the Panoply Academy and the Impossible Shapes.

But he's probably best known for his work in Marmoset, one of the more beloved bands on (and one of the earliest signees to) Bloomington label Secretly Canadian. The group's most recent album, "Florist Fired," was released last year.

On a personal note, Ellrich worked behind-the-scenes on an album by the Bloomington band Uvula, which was released early in the decade on a short-lived label I ran with two other IU alums. I only met him a handful of times during the album's genesis, but he was always a voice of reason when corresponding with my partners and I by phone and email. After all, we had no idea what the hell we were doing, and he was kind enough to help us through the rough spots.

Ellrich was also about to begin producing recordings by two dear friends of mine, Mitch Harris and Erica Siegel. "As sad as I am that this will not happen, I am grateful to have had a glimpse of his wonderful insight," Mitch wrote on Musical Family Tree.

"Though most knew him as an amazingly subtle and musical drummer, LP was very much a Swiss army knife," reads a tribute on Secretly Canadian's Web site. "He could sing, play guitar, break out a fucked up keyboard part, it didn't matter. His primary instrument was his sheer taste in music and unending -- sometimes to a fault -- need to realize what he was hearing in his brain." -- Jonathan Cohen