On the 17th, my long time friend Ian Allen died, after complications to a heart valve surgery at Stanford Hospital. He was only 56 years old. My last visit was in the early hours of the 17th–it seemed like he could have fought on, but the odds had just kept mounting: a treatment resistant hospital bacteria, internal bleeding (it had finally scabbed, though), organ failure.
Over the last few years, he had been my best “tester,” always willing to check out and comment the projects I was working on, whether musical or programming. He tried to learn Java, then Python, then other languages but despite having been top of his class in first year Physics at UC Berkeley, and successfully game programming with FORTH at Unison Kyocera with me back in the 1980’s, his current state of health (cancer survivor, dealing with bipolar, other issues) left him in a state where I think it was just too fatiguing to hold everything in his head all at once.
Regardless, he still had a great perspective, with sharp, honest and unique insights that made him a valuable source of feedback as well as a true friend willing to give me his time like that.
Before he went in for the operation, he was talking about aiming for projects with a time line of about a week to complete. Many of his sound-compositions that were most successful were accomplished in this sort of time frame. We were optimistic, though I was also preparing myself for the worst as a possibility. Am so sad/angry/disappointed that he wasn’t able to get through this!
I am really proud that he is getting some recognition in the press. I wish he could have seen this! Rolling Stone, Billboard, Pitchfork, lots of other news feeds! This tribute from negativland (Ian always insisted the proper spelling was lowercase) has been picked up by the press at large. He really was big on the culture jamming concept, right from the start, and as far as I know, introducing those ideas to members of negativland.