R.I.P local musician James Alexander Smith

["The Freq"]

It's with heavy heart I report the passing of yet another local musician and friend James Alexander Smith who died at the young age of 47. No cause of death was mentioned on the news but he died at home. Jim was a guitarist and bass player for a few bands around town but also down in southern Ontario. He also recorded bass with the band Tikkanen on their self titled album release many years ago. Jim moved back to the Soo after his days with Tikkanen and joined forces in a music revue band called Buffalo Alice that did many decades of classic tunes along with costumes to go with each style of music. I first met Jim when I joined local guitarist Paul Tikkanen in the band Thansis Colle. This band did all original material. The time frame was around 1982. Jim did both rhythm guitar and bass duties. Jim had a great knack for writing lyrics and always carried a notebook with him to write lyrics down as the ideas hit him. We were a prog rock band and very experimental. The band lasted a few years and the music from those days still exists on old reel to reel tapes I have in my collection. Jim had his struggles for years and after a while, I lost touch with him until recently when I helped him fix his bike. I'm not sure what happened to him but our old guitarist made a statement saying, that we should have give him a call over the years. There's no excuse to be silent for so many years. As true and sad that is, we can't change that now. It's too late.

It's been a rough few months for me having lost two friends like this who were so young. It makes you realize how mortal we all are and that we should cherish our time on this planet.

Here are a few tunes that Jim played on. The first is from the band Tikkanen and a song called "Rolling Daze". Jim plays bass. The second is a rough instrumental version of the song "This Machine" by our old band Thansis Colle. R.I.P. Jim