Richard Lyons, American musician, Died at 57

Richard Lyons was born on April 19, 1959, and died on April 19, 2016.

He was an American musician.

Richard was probably best known for being one of the founding members of the experimental music band Negativland.

His band included Dick Vaughn, 5-time CalPi Award winner; auto trivia expert Dick Goodbody, and Pastor Richard Seeland, an ordained minister.

His story was, that While looking through used records in a thrift store in the mid 1980s, Lyons discovered a 1968 LP by Baptist preacher Estus Pirkle entitled If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? Lyons was intrigued by the LP and brought it to the other members of Negativland.

To write the song, They sampled phrases and rearranged words from Pirkle’s sermon to create “Christianity Is Stupid” which was released on their 1987 album Escape From Noise.

The second song from Escape From Noise, “Nesbitt’s Lime Soda Song”, was composed and sung by Lyons.

During 1988, Lyons masterminded a hoaxed press release that claimed the Negativland song “Christianity Is Stupid” had inspired 16-year-old David Brom to murder his entire immediate family.

And also claimed that Negativland had been “advised by Federal official Dick Jordan not to leave town pending an investigation into the Brom murders”.

He came up with the idea for the press release when Negativland could not afford to go on tour in support of Escape From Noise.

He prepared the phony press release and mailed it out to various news outlets, many of whom took it at face value.

That particular hoax received widespread media coverage, inspiring Negativland’s next album Helter Stupid.

Richard traveled with the band during its “True or False” tour, doing a mid-show version of “Pastor Dick’s Treehouse”.

Lyons died on his 57th birthday, April 19, 2016, from complications of nodular melanoma.

Richard Lyons passed away at 57 yrs old.