Glen "Spot" Lockett — the in-house producer and engineer for formative punk label SST Records — has died. Lockett's March 4 passing was confirmed by SST's former co-owner Joe Carducci, who shared that the producer was battling multiple health issues. He was 72.
"He had cancelled a planned photography exhibit in late 2021 when he found his fibrosis began to impair lung function. Since then he'd been on oxygen and was hoping for a lung transplant, but a stroke about three months ago put him in the hospital," Carducci wrote of Spot in a Facebook post. "I was hoping he was recovering speech but realistically he was not likely at his age and condition to become a candidate for a lung transplant, though that would have solved his health problems."
Behind the boards for SST, Spot — which he spelled capitalized, with a dot in the middle of the O — played a major role in the creation of acclaimed records in punk and hardcore canon. These include Black Flag's Damaged, Descendents' Milo Goes to College, the self-titled debut from Saint Vitus, the Misfits' Earth A.D./Wolfs Blood, Hüsker Dü's Zen Arcade and more.
Spot — who Carducci characterizes as someone who "didn't dwell alot on his personal history" — was born in Los Angeles in 1951 to Native American mother and African American father, the latter of whom had flown with the Tuskegee Airmen. Upon moving to Hermosa Beach in the mid-1970s, he would befriend Greg Ginn and play bass in his band Panic — the outfit that would go on to become Black Flag.
Carducci shared of Spot's musicianship, "He started in Hermosa Beach playing and recording jazz and he took the primacy of live jazz playing into recording bands against prevailing attempts to soften or industrialize a back-to-basics arts movement in sound. When approaching the mixing board SPOT would assume an Elvis-like stance and then gesturing toward all the knobs he would say in a Louis Armstrong-like voice, 'This is going to be gelatinous!'"
Spot also worked as a freelancer for local weekly Easy Reader, authoring record reviews under his nickname and pursuing photojournalism. Continuing to take snaps while working with SST, he would publish photography collection Sounds of Two Eyes Opening in 2014, capturing Southern California Life:Skate/Beach/Punk from 1969 through 1982.
"First and foremost, I'm a musician and everything else I've ever done has been based on that," Spot explained to Vice in a 2014 interview on his book of photography. "It's really the basis of all language and if you're serious about the experience of music, you learn to keep both sides of your brain open and rely upon instinct rather than premeditation. Y'know, using improvisation and gut feelings as frameworks for rhythm and composition. In photography, the viewfinder should not be a limitation — it's merely one part of a larger vision."
"He had cancelled a planned photography exhibit in late 2021 when he found his fibrosis began to impair lung function. Since then he'd been on oxygen and was hoping for a lung transplant, but a stroke about three months ago put him in the hospital," Carducci wrote of Spot in a Facebook post. "I was hoping he was recovering speech but realistically he was not likely at his age and condition to become a candidate for a lung transplant, though that would have solved his health problems."
Behind the boards for SST, Spot — which he spelled capitalized, with a dot in the middle of the O — played a major role in the creation of acclaimed records in punk and hardcore canon. These include Black Flag's Damaged, Descendents' Milo Goes to College, the self-titled debut from Saint Vitus, the Misfits' Earth A.D./Wolfs Blood, Hüsker Dü's Zen Arcade and more.
Spot — who Carducci characterizes as someone who "didn't dwell alot on his personal history" — was born in Los Angeles in 1951 to Native American mother and African American father, the latter of whom had flown with the Tuskegee Airmen. Upon moving to Hermosa Beach in the mid-1970s, he would befriend Greg Ginn and play bass in his band Panic — the outfit that would go on to become Black Flag.
Carducci shared of Spot's musicianship, "He started in Hermosa Beach playing and recording jazz and he took the primacy of live jazz playing into recording bands against prevailing attempts to soften or industrialize a back-to-basics arts movement in sound. When approaching the mixing board SPOT would assume an Elvis-like stance and then gesturing toward all the knobs he would say in a Louis Armstrong-like voice, 'This is going to be gelatinous!'"
Spot also worked as a freelancer for local weekly Easy Reader, authoring record reviews under his nickname and pursuing photojournalism. Continuing to take snaps while working with SST, he would publish photography collection Sounds of Two Eyes Opening in 2014, capturing Southern California Life:Skate/Beach/Punk from 1969 through 1982.
"First and foremost, I'm a musician and everything else I've ever done has been based on that," Spot explained to Vice in a 2014 interview on his book of photography. "It's really the basis of all language and if you're serious about the experience of music, you learn to keep both sides of your brain open and rely upon instinct rather than premeditation. Y'know, using improvisation and gut feelings as frameworks for rhythm and composition. In photography, the viewfinder should not be a limitation — it's merely one part of a larger vision."