Died On This Date (June 3, 2012) Bobby Durango / Rock City Angels
themusicsover Bobby Durango
DOB Unknown – June 3, 2012
Bobby Durango is perhaps best remembered as the lead singer of the ’80s hard rock band, Rock City Angels. Formed out of the ashes of a punk band called the Abusers – Durango performing as Bobby Bondage, Rock City Angels eventually morphed into a glam-by-way-of punk band that built a sizable following on their home turf of South Florida. By the late ’80s, they found themselves in Hollywood and Durango was going by Bobby St. Valentine. Numerous line up changes later, including a stint with pre-21 Jump Street Johnny Depp on guitar, the band caught the attention of Geffen Records who signed them to a lucrative deal. The band released their debut album, Young Man’s Blues in 1988 and subsequently toured with the likes of Joan Jett and the Georgia Satellites before focusing on their second album. Unfortunately for bands like Rock City Angels, it was the early ’90s and bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and their grunge brethren to the north, were starting to draw kids – and record labels – away from the hair and post-hair metal bands of the Sunset Strip, so Geffen dropped them before their new album came together. The band eventually broke up but reunited to record Use Once & Destroy in 2001. Durango continued on with the group, in one form or another, for the better part of the next decade and were reportedly working on a new album to be released in late 2012. But Bobby Durango passed away unexpectedly on June 3, 2012. Cause of death was not immediately released.
Thanks to Janiss Garza for the assist.
Layne Staley was the lead singer of hair band killers, Alice In Chains. The band was part of a new musical movement that exploded out of Seattle in the early ’90s. It was called Grunge and Alice In Chains ruled alongside Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Nirvana. It married the best elements of metal with punk and spoke to millions of disaffected teens of that era. Staley’s voice separated them from the pack. It was metal but it was also rock god. On stage, he quickly became one of the generations most captivating front men. Sadly, as the band’s success soared in the mid ’90s, so did Staley drug habits. And it only got worse in 1996 when his fiance died of drug abuse. As the decade came to a close, Staley was mostly invisible to fans of Alice In Chains, making sporadic contributions to soundtracks and such. On April 19, 2002, Staley’s lifeless body was found in his condo by his mother and step father. He was surrounded by various drugs and paraphernalia. The autopsy concluded that he had died of a deadly dose of heroin and cocaine, or “speedball.” The coroner determined the official date of death as April 5, 2002, two weeks before he had been found. It was amazingly eight years to the day after 
