'The Caretaker: An Empty Bliss Beyond This World --- Pretty sure Uncle Rob turned me on to this album when he was staying on the futon in the extra room at the Purple Palace in the summer of 2013. The concept of this album from the perspective of a patient with Alzheimer's disease and their mind trying to remember music from their past was very intriguing. Of course nods to the Shining are bonus points. And that summer we created many memories, including going to Atlanta for some Gold Cup matches and moving him from Nashville to Oregon."
- Anthony DelRosario, Friend/Fellow Misfit
"Rob would always send me his playlists when he was at KLSU and WTUL. Our musical tastes were quite different, but I would memorize the bands that he played and would randomly drop them into a conversation in a totally absurd way just to watch his face light up. We were really good friends and lived nearby when he lived on Iberville. We would frequently hang out and he started bringing me to WTUL when he would have a shift. One particular Sunday night, we were hanging out at WTUL and ran to the car to get a CD (Kruder and Dorfmeister -- The K&D Sessions) and a group of guys approached me (this was late night/early AM) and said they were local rappers and they wanted to come on air. So I brought them into the studio and Rob interviewed them and they played a few tracks from their CD, but Rob and I really latched on to one of their songs and had it on repeat for a few weeks - Slide It 2 Da Side by Da Pretty Thuggz. We would talk about that one night or blurt out one of the lyrics to that song every time we talked."
- Michael Pertuit, Friend / Fellow Electrical
Engineer
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"Rob introduced Calexico to me during our college radio days. 'El Picador' because a long-standing favorite tune for us because every time we saw them perform live, we would yell in a drunken-stupor, 'El Picador!' "
-Guy Anglade, Friend
"When Rob was DJing at WTUL in the early days of our friendship, I called in to request that he play “Rain Dogs” by Tom Waits. He did and later said how he really disliked it and wouldn’t play it again. But, he came around to that song specifically and to Tom Waits generally. I started with Swordfishtrombones, Frank’s Wild Years, and Rain Dogs but made my way to Tom Waits’ early catalog as did Rob. I especially loved/love “Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis” on Blue Valentine as did Rob. I sent a link of the live version of the song from ACL to Rob via Facebook messenger and he said “Man the studio version of this song is so devastating. And perfect. And we're lucky to live in the same time as him. If this world continues, he'll be seen as bigger than life like names we know from 3-500 years ago. I think. This version is outstanding as well.” I have Rob’s vinyl copy of “Blue Valentine.” Lippy found it for me while we were sorting through Rob’s record collection after Rob bridged. The song and album still break my heart, but even more so now."
- Lillian Lovich, Friend / Fellow Misfit
Rob with Jim O'Rouke and Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth (photo by Anthony)
"There are too many, but the one that comes to mind was the day Rob and I spent the day with Thurston Moore and Jim O'Rourke. We showed them such a good time that their manager was calling a lot of people trying to figure out where we were. We went record shopping, then out to eat. We went to Old Dog New Trick because Jim was vegan and had all sort of dietary restrictions. He said it was the best (and first real) meal he had on the entire tour. And about a hundred others..."
- Chris Crowley (Crow Leigh), Friend
"There are several music memories with Rob of course! This particular one involves Rudi too. Rudi was a little bitty thing, five maybe? She was in the backseat of that little car Rob used to drive. He was playing a mixed tape that I believe he made for her. This song came on, I wish I knew the name of the band or the name of the song, maybe someone out there I can help. Female singer, I think all the band members were fem…the song had a very upbeat, happy, sounding tempo, the lyrics “I’m gonna kill that bitch!” Little Rudi was bopping along, but what she heard and was singing with great enthusiasm was, “I got a big fat FISH!"
- Maria Joseph, Friend
"I’m picking a song I don’t really love, but like it okay. Despite the plethora of songs we traded and discussed, infinitely, the one song I pick is Ride by Lana Del Rey. Why? Because Rob was SO insistent and relentless in getting me to at least like it, haha. So it represents a long and hilarious dialogue."
- Clarke Martty, Friend
"I met Rob at college in NOLA. We first bonded over Kate Bush and then over a little known band from my neck of the woods called WEEN. I gave him a copy of their first vinyl album. He loved their sense of humor as it matched his own. Rob was a fearless lover of music and was open to anything. He is missed."
- Celena (aka Slo to Rob). Carden, Friend
"When my best friend Ed walked into his spare bedroom and later asked me: Why does that guy have like 9000 CD's in his house :)!!!"
Chad Falterman, Friend
"Rob and I first met on April 16, 1988 at Tipitina’s. I happen to know the exact date (although I had to look it up decades later), because we met at a Clan of Xymox gig. My memories of that night are hazy, but I distinctly recall this big blond guy simply bowling me over with his boundless enthusiasm and good humour. He was charming, in a dorky sort of way, and I liked him immediately — although I felt I could hardly keep up with his quick wit and didn’t really know what to make of the relentless stream of pop culture (and more obscure) references. We kept in touch and became good friends, bonding over our shared love of music. We shared an apartment for a while, too, where we spent many a late night listening to new tunes (boxes of demos and advance copies of records arrived at our door almost daily) and commiserating over our individual ongoing romantic relationship woes. We often counselled each other in matters concerning the opposite sex, which is frankly absurd, if you know either of us at all. I remember waking up in the middle of the night to the sounds of several people, all strangers to me, stumbling through the front door with Rob leading the way. There were four or five of them, all trying to be quiet, though they were loaded with bags of gear and clearly the worse for wear. I squinted at Rob for an explanation and he told me that the band he’d been out to see that night somehow didn’t have any accommodation arranged for themselves, so he’d invited them back to our two-bedroom apartment for the night. Cool, cool, I said, and went back to bed. Living with Rob was fun. I moved away from New Orleans a year or two later and I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I saw Rob in person after that. We spoke on the phone, though, and later chatted online for hours, over the decades, across the miles, always about the same things: music, relationships, and our mutual friends. He knew my musical tastes and never failed to supply me with a list of new artists to check out, as well as the occasional carefully curated mix-tape or CD. The realisation that he’s gone still punches me in the gut every now and then, when I least expect it, most recently the other day when I was cooking dinner and “Sigh’s Smell of Farewell” by Cocteau Twins came up on my playlist. I cried in the kitchen, but I smiled, too, remembering my dear friend. "
- Amy Seymour Angus, Friend / Fellow Misfit
"I have a distinct memory of Rob that I am reminded of every time I hear one specific song. I’ll never forget, one day we were sitting in the WTUL office, and Rob was adding CDs to the new music shelf. He stuck one into his computer and said “the kids are going to love this,” and started playing “Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl,” by Broken Social Scene. It blew my mind for two reasons. I loved the song. It sounded like nothing I’d heard before and really stuck with me. But also, his comment also made me think about getting older. I was young, in college, invisible. And yet, at some point soon, I wouldn’t even know what the “kids” were listening to. I treated Rob’s sage wisdom as a life lesson, that there’s value in staying in touch with the “kids,” even if their trends don’t align with our own preferences."
- Jeremy Kutner, Friend from WTUL ‘02-'06
"Rob teased me hard about doing a lot of dorky themes on my radio shows. I was once actually doing songs about meat, maybe for a whole show, or at least for a set. He said I was much too young, but that there was a good song by Tad, and I gestured to a record on the right side of the right turntable. "You mean this one here?" I also ran into him along with an old neighbor at an amazing reunion show by Big Star at the Howling Wolf on New Year's Eve around 2000. The three of us hung out for the duration of the show and had a good time chatting. Alex Chilton, other members of that configuration of the band and Rob are all gone now, but memories of a great night go on."
-Cathy Hersh, Fellow DJ/Misfit, Friend
"I volunteered at KSER-FM in Everett WA., and Rob had the Friday morning slot. I’d be driving to work (the Mukilteo Brooklyn Brothers pizza parlor) and he’d be playing a great blends of music, some requests, but mostly just what he fancied at the moment. One day it was Nat King Cole’s “Nature Boy” which I’m sure I heard before, but as a Pirtle-chune it took on a new, important context."
- Wade Oberlin, Radio Colleague
"How much space do I get here? So many music memories with Rob. He turned me on to dozens and dozens of bands I never heard of. I was mostly a mainstream music fan b4 I met him. Too many to list but he turned me on to some amazing music especially when I lived with Rob for about two years. As everyone knew, Rob lived and breathed music. He never watched TV. He went to sleep with music on (quite often Brian Eno when I lived with him). We saw many live shows in NOLA. So many great memories of shows, movies, restaurants, barbecues, trips to Nashville, Baton Rouge, Houston and Maine that I will always remember. It’s hard to pick just one song or album here for this tribute. At first I was thinking to pick the first song from the first album by Tortoise (Magnet Pulls Through from their self titled album). This was the first CD Rob ever gave me when we first met around 1996. Tortoise was playing in a few weeks (I think at The Howlin Wolf) and we went. That was my intro to Rob’s world of music. But Rob was also a big fan of Low and became friendly with them. One last quick story if I can: we went to see Low at The Mermaid (maybe their first time in NOLA) and I guess they didn’t have a setlist and at one point in their set the singer looked to the drummer (husband and wife) and asked what should they play next. So Rob suggested a song which they then played. After that song the singer asked Rob what they should play next and Rob said another song which they played. This happened maybe once more before I think the drummer (and wife) decided they played longer than they anticipated. But it was a great night and very funny with Rob giving them song suggestions. He was in his element of course. So I’ll pick a song ("Words") from Low as my link to solidify my great memories of Rob. Rizza Scrip. Thanks for reading. RIP my brother. Thank you. Miss you."
- Kevin, Bedfellow but only when Nibbles was in the mix.
"Rob's vast taste in music and knowledge about music left me in awe. First, I knew Rob through his friends. He was truly loved and I came to understand why. We were never very close, but he had a knack of dropping a dm to check in when it was needed. Music was where we bonded, first we reminisced about bands in the 80s-90s. Oh, we had to have been in the same room a few times. Then moved on to current music. If Rob said, you should go see this band. I usually would. He never lead me astray. I hear so many things that remind me of him. He never got to hear this one (Lana Del Rey - Let The Light In (Audio) ft. Father John Misty), but I think he would approve. He was never shy about his appreciation of American Idol. Haha!"
- Danielle Stewart, Fellow Misfit
"Rob was my music director when I was in college at WTUL and I loved him - My personal favorite album and band he told me about is Stars of the Lid- The Tired Sounds of"
- Erik Person, WTUL music director
"My favorite music memory of Rob of course includes his legendary Boston Terrier, Nibbles. In the song “On Parade” by Electrelane, there is a particular high-pitched part of the track that I can only describe as a bird call. As if on cue, she would tilt her little meaty head to the side every time the sound played. It was the funniest damn thing. Boy do I miss that big man and his little dog. "
- Amy Goldfine, Friend / WTUL GM / Nibbles-Sitter
