[kj] OT Former POISON IDEA Guitarist PIG CHAMPION Found Dead - Feb. 1, 2006

Christof hamille wessidetempest at hotmail.com
Wed Feb 1 09:16:39 EST 2006


I am crushed

Former POISON IDEA Guitarist PIG CHAMPION Found Dead - Feb. 1, 2006
Thomas "Pig Champion" Roberts, guitarist for POISON IDEA, died at his home 
in Portland, Oregon, Monday night (Jan. 30). A founding member of the 
seminal punk band, he continued to appear with POISON IDEA throughout the 
late Nineties and into the new millennium, despite officially quitting the 
band in 1993. Variously described as "spectacularly fat," and "the single 
largest man in hardcore history," Roberts crowned himself "Pig Champion" 
after hitting an impressive 450 lbs. on the scales. The highly regarded 
guitarist was revered by a devoted following worldwide. No further 
information is available at this time.

According to the Taang! Records web site, POISON IDEA was formed in 1980 in 
Portland, Oregon by frontman Jerry A., Roberts, bassist Chris Tense, and 
drummer Dean Johnson. The group debuted three years later with the EP "Pick 
Your King", cramming 13 songs into a 16-minute time frame; the "Record 
Collectors Are Pretentious Assholes" EP followed in 1985, fine-tuning the 
band's blistering sound and fatalistic worldview. Thanks to their 
notoriously insatiable diet of drugs, alcohol, and junk food, the members of 
POISON IDEA all ballooned past the 300-pound mark by the time of the 1986 
full-length "Kings of Punk". Tense and Johnson were then dismissed from the 
lineup, although the former returned in time for 1987's "War All the Time", 
recorded with second guitarist Eric "Vegetable" Olsen and drummer Steve 
"Thee Slayer Hippy" Hanford; Tense was then replaced by bassist Mondo for 
1988's "Filthkick" EP. Both the "Darby Crash Rides Again" and "Ian MacKaye" 
EPs followed a year later, another period of roster tumult which made way 
for the addition of guitarist Kid Cocksman (soon replaced by Aldine 
Striknine) and bassist Myrtle Tickner. POISON IDEA returned in 1990 with 
"Feel the Darkness", with a series of live releases (the "Official Bootleg" 
EP, the "Live in Vienna" EP, and the "Dutch Courage" LP) preceding 1992's 
"Blank Blackout". A collaboration with Jeff Dahl appeared a year later, 
concurrent with the covers album "Pajama Party"; however, in the wake of Pig 
Champion's subsequent departure POISON IDEA disbanded, releasing their June 
6, 1993, farewell gig at Portland's La Luna as "Pig's Last Stand".




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