RIP Cheetah Chrome, guitarist with The Dead Boys

The Dead Boys were one of the bands that became famous playing CBGBs and Max’s Kansas City in the late 70s. After they outgrew the Cleveland punk scene (they descended from a legendary band called Rockets from the Tombs who never recorded a note), there was one place to go: NYC. And when they got there, they developed a reputation as one of the most violent of that first wave of punk bands.

Stiv Bators was the guy out front, but guitarist Cheetah Chrome (actually Eugene Richard O’Connor) also attracted a lot of attention. People who were there threw around phrase like “architect of New York punk rock guitar.”

There was never any chance of them lasting long and they broke up in 1980 after about five years. There was one reunion in 1987, but that would be the only proper regrouping because Stiv (by this time heading up a band called Lords of the New Church) died in Paris after being hit by a bus.

After the Dead Boys broke up, Cheetah worked solo, recording a number of albums as well as performing on Ronnie Spector’s debut album and then somehow managing to survey touring with rock’s all-time whacko, GG Allin. His friends and admirers included Joan Jett, the members of the New York Dolls, and various players in bands like Alice Cooper’s Group and The Cult.

By the early 2010s, he was working for a label that reissued material from classic country singer Eddie Arnold. No, really. He produced a tribute album, too.

Cheetah died on Saturday (September 13) at the age of 71. We don’t know anything about the cause of death.