Ollie Olsen 1958 - 2024
16th October 2024
I am terribly saddened that my friend - and favourite musician of all - Ollie Olsen has died. He passed peacefully in his sleep this morning under the care of The Royal Melbourne Hospital with his wife Jayne at his side.
He was 66 and had been battling multiple system atrophy for five years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHX5PtPDIlY 2022 interview with Jane Gazzo.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/oct/17/ian-ollie-olsen-death-age-66-australian-musician
https://help-a-mate-ollie-olsen.raiselysite.com
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/oct/17/ian-ollie-olsen-death-age-66-australian-musician
https://help-a-mate-ollie-olsen.raiselysite.com
Links to some of his music which means so much to me:
https://ollieolsenofficial.bandcamp.com/
https://psy-harmonics.bandcamp.com/album/third-eye-2
Here you can listen to many of his records and CDs, including the awesome Third Eye Ancient Future (1993 Spotify), (words fail me, but start with transcendent) Siddhaloka, from Third Eye Dance of Creation (1994 Spotify) and (no idea how to describe these either) Rainy Taxi and Windscreen Wiper from Shaolin Wooden Men The Hungry Forest.
https://psy-harmonics.bandcamp.com/album/third-eye-2
(Running out of words again . . .) Beautiful Madness and Pray from the first Third Eye album, recorded in Melbourne in 1991, with Gus Till, Third Eye.
Straight lines don't mean a thing anymore . . .
In 1993, I was repairing Ollie's
TB-303 and he asked me to do any sound modifications I could think
of. This prompted me to develop many of the mods which later
became the Devil Fish (see ../).
I couldn't make the mods permanent and useful in his machine, so the
first actual Devil Fish was for Krishan Knowles, in Sydney.
Once I developed proper circuit boards, Ollie's machine became one of
the first Devil Fishes.
I miss my beautiful friend, but he left us so much music. Music which brings tears to my eyes. Tears of sadness and loss, and of joy and in contemplation of gorgeous beauty as if from beyond. So much of Ollie's music is from beyond.
When I learned of his illness in 2022, I had spent two years raising awareness of the need for proper vitamin D3 supplementation, which is needed if our immune systems are to function properly. I had never heard of multiple system atrophy but it took me about three minutes with Google Scholar to find research showing that this neurodegenerative disease, which is only slightly different from Parkinson's disease and dementia with Lewy bodies, is much more common in people with the lowest 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels. See: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#3.3.
I miss my beautiful friend, but he left us so much music. Music which brings tears to my eyes. Tears of sadness and loss, and of joy and in contemplation of gorgeous beauty as if from beyond. So much of Ollie's music is from beyond.
When I learned of his illness in 2022, I had spent two years raising awareness of the need for proper vitamin D3 supplementation, which is needed if our immune systems are to function properly. I had never heard of multiple system atrophy but it took me about three minutes with Google Scholar to find research showing that this neurodegenerative disease, which is only slightly different from Parkinson's disease and dementia with Lewy bodies, is much more common in people with the lowest 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels. See: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#3.3.