Rock shock
Cars great Ric Ocasek found dead in NY apt.
Ric Ocasek, frontman of the iconic new-wave rock band The Cars, was found dead in his Manhattan apartment Sunday. He was either 70 or 75, according to conflicting reports. As of Sunday night, Wikipedia listed his date of birth as “March 23, 1944 or March 23, 1949.” Ocasek was discovered at around 4:14 p.m. inside his Gramercy Park pad by his estranged wife, supermodel Paulina Porizkova, according to lawenforcement sources. He was declared dead at the scene. Ocasek appeared to have died from natural causes, the sources said. The Medical Examiner’s Office will determine the official cause of death. Ocasek and his seminal band shot tto fame with their self-titled debut album in 1978, which included hit singalongs such as “My Best Friend’s Girl” and “Just What I Needed.” ThThe singer, born in Baltimore as Richard Otcasek, gave some insight last year into what shaped him as a performer, when he joined the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s Class of 2018. “FFirstly, I’d like to thank my wheelchaired grandmother for forcing me to sing in the parlor in front of her friends when I was 5,” Ocasek said in his acceptance speech. “SShe also had the nerve to buy me a guitar — a Sears and Roebuck, when I was about 14.” OcaOcasek, who also became a prolific producer for bands including Weezer and Bad Brains, said that he was inspired to begin playing when he heard “That’ll Be The Day” by Buddy Holly & His Crickets on the radio. ShortShortly before the induction, he reflected on his years in the band in an interview with Rolling Stone.
“It’s certainly a wonderful feeling to be accepted by peers and you see the people that are in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, who gets inducted, it’s a positive feeling that you get,” Ocasek said.
From 1978 to 1987, the band churned out six records, “five of which are good-to-great, wrote AV Club music critic Erik Adams in a 2018 essay, calling the Cars “the type of band that put out a perfect debut record, and then had the audacity to not pack it in after that.”
In 1984, the band received a new notable accolade, winning MTV’s inaugural Video of the Year award for “You Might Think,” the smash lead single from their fifth album, “Heartbeat City.”
After a long hiatus, the band reunited in 2011 and released the album “Move Like This.” It was their first and only album without founding singer-bassist Benjamin Orr, who died in 2000.
Ocasek had recently placed the home where he was found dead on the market after he and Porizkova announced their split in May 2018.
The pair, who shared two sons. had been together for 28 years. He also had four sons from his previous two marriages.