Jeffrey Runnings, founding member, bassist and vocalist of the Nebraska-based indie band For Towards, has died. He was 61.
Runnings died March 3 after a battle with Stage 4 most cancers, Unbiased Mission Data introduced.
Since their begin in 1984 in Lincoln, Nebraska, For Towards was recognized for a drifting, rhythmic dream pop sound that one critic famous had “one foot within the British post-punk of Pleasure Division and the opposite within the gliding atmospherics of Kitchens of Distinction.” Their first single was “Autocrat/It’s a Lie.”
Their albums included 1987’s Echelons and 1988’s December, each on the Phrases on Music label; 1993’s Aperture and 1995’s Mason’s California Lunch Room, off the Rainbow Quartz label; and 1997’s Shelf Life, from the World Domination label.
The band returned to Phrases on Music for LPs in 2002, 2008 and 2009, and Runnings recorded a solo album, Primitives & Smalls, launched in 2016 by Saint Marie Data.
One other solo LP that Runnings recorded final yr, Piqued, will quickly be launched by IPR and have a four-track EP of uncommon recordings from the late Nineteen Eighties. The primary single, “Batman Without end,” may be heard right here.
“Jeffrey Runnings was not solely a superb good friend and an impressive musician and songwriter, however somebody whose life revolved round music,” Unbiased Mission Data founder and co-owner Bruce Licher mentioned in an announcement.
“Jeff was all the time enthusiastically sharing music that he thought his buddies would get pleasure from, and for years he would ship me handwritten letters typically accompanied by information he thought I ought to have, or a mixtape he’d made that he thought I ought to hear. Even now, in the course of the second decade of the twenty first century, when he despatched me his new album to listen to for the primary time, it was on a cassette tape that he mailed by way of the submit. I couldn’t have requested for something extra particular. His distinctive voice shall be missed on so many ranges.”
Born in Omaha, Nebraska, on April 22, 1963, Jeffrey Scott Runnings grew up gathering information and taking piano classes. A left-hander, he discovered to play right-handed guitars the other way up. He additionally beloved cats and labored at a cat café in his hometown.
Survivors embody his husband, Sean; his brother, Steve (and his companion, Linda); his nephews, Rudy (Darcy) and Phil; his niece, Christina; and his uncle, Gerald. He was preceded by his sister, Karen.
Donations may be made to his GoFundMe web page.
