Musician, writer, collector, champion of artists from around the globe. The recent loss of Ron Kane has been felt far beyond the borders of his native Southern California.
Ron Kane Earlier this month, the greater Los Angeles area lost one of its most recognizable and respected record collectors. Ron Kane was a regular customer at Rockaway Records and many other local record stores for decades. Many current employees remember him meticulously sifting through our selection of 45s as he tried to fill holes in his collection, imparting his encyclopedic knowledge of rock/prog and new wave all the while.
Ron Kane Decayes Ron was much more than just a record collector. The band he founded, The Decayes, was revered around the globe by fans of psychedelic and experimental music. Being name-checked on the Nurse With Wound List brings with it a kind of cachè no album review could impart.
Since 2011, his website, The Ron Kane Files, served as means to share what Ron was currently listening, had recently purchased, his insights, and countless stories from his past. To get a feeling of how Ron's mind operated when it came to music, look no further than that website.
In the days since Ron's passing, countless friends and acquaintances have taken time to pay their respects. Gary Steel's tribute is required reading. Others who knew him -- or knew of him -- have reached out to us to share their memories of Ron as well. We will continue to update this post as more friends and acquaintances offer their thoughts and condolences.
Ron Kane was not just a force of nature, he was an unnatural force of nature, without peer or superior. His energy and enthusiasm for music (irrespective of genre or geography) bordered on other-worldly -- and the mere act of being in his presence would broaden your own musical horizons, as if it were achieved by the power of radiation. Ron and I were born the same year -- and we both had older brothers that we could blame for turning us into music addicts. This bit of synchronicity may have made of me a very open and willing vessel for all of his enthusiastic musical recommendations. He didn't suffer too many fools gladly, but, for some reason, he allowed this particular fool to be granted access to the full spectrum of his supra-developed musical sensibilities. May the Gods bless him as he enters into the highest musical vibration that the Universe can provide. If there is an afterlife, his will be comprised of the purest eternal note -- and he'll be there to share it with me when I arrive to meet him once again. After all, this was his life's mission -- and I am convinced that it was one that could never be completed in one lifetime." - Rick Snyder.
"I didn’t know Ron Kane except to occasionally buy records from him through the mail, but he was a visionary. In his writings and advocacy, he championed unusual musical points of view from around the world at a time when that took much more effort, and courage, than today. He was one of the first people outside New Zealand to appreciate that small country’s unique offerings. He corresponded with and encouraged musicians from around the world, and across genre boundaries. He was such an omnivorous and generous musical spirit that he saw nothing strange in championing Percy Faith and Simply Red alongside SPK and Frank Zappa’s most outré disciples. His own music, mostly with the long-running Decayes, tended toward the abstract, but he saw no contradiction in loving the poppiest pop music and the artiest art music. He played, sold, wrote about, and lived music with a passion, and the world is better for it". - Geoffrey Weiss.
"Ron Kane was an obsessed record collector with an insatiable thirst for music and records, and I feel lucky to have known him. I hadn’t seen Ron in a long while, but spent many hours in his presence when we were younger men who haunted used record stores and spent all night at record swap meets, waiting for people to open the trunks of their cars and reveal the treasures within. Whenever I’d run into Ron, we’d talk records and I’d always learn something new. Yesterday I found some photos of him online and they made me laugh a laugh of recognition; seeing young Ron in his room surrounded by posters of the bands he loved, and traveling the world to go and get the records he sought. He wasn’t someone who sat at home, waiting for the records to come to him. The world was a better place because of Ron Kane, especially the record collector world. It’s hard to imagine him not here, but I’ll always remember him with a smile." - Jeff Gold.
Shortly before Ron's passing, Rockaway acquired his personal collection, which totaled over 30,000 combined LPs, CDs, 45s, posters and other formats. We'll be processing and making available everything from this collection daily over the course of the next several months in both our retail store and on our website. Keep an eye on our social media and our website for the latest arrivals, and definitely keep an eye out for the instantly recognizable "Property Of Ronald Kane" stickers that he meticulously affixed to most of the items he collected during his lifelong pursuit of all things music.
