Scott Schinder, Veteran Music Writer, Dies at 61

Publish date: 2024-09-13

Veteran music writer Scott Schinder, who wrote for virtually every major music publication over the course of a three-decade-plus-long career, has died after a long illness, his friend Randy Haecker confirms to Variety.

Schinder’s work can be read in Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Billboard, Time Out New York, the Austin Chronicle, Please Kill Me, Creem, Musician, Newsday, Stereophile, Musician, Tower Pulse, New Musical Express, Melody Maker, Texas Music, SXSWorld and probably many others. No cause of death has been announced; he was 61.

A native of Long Island and a longtime New York resident, Schinder was a ubiquitous presence on the city’s music scene, where, beginning in the 1980s, he could be found most nights of the week at CBGB, Irving Plaza, Maxwells, Under Acme, Brownies and multiple other venues of the era. Indeed, the photo on his author page at Please Kill Me could have been taken at one of dozens of different venues in the city on any of a couple thousand evenings (it was actually taken at CBGB circa early 1990s).

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He had a longstanding affection for Austin, Texas — attending the first South by Southwest festival there in 1987 and a majority of the ones that followed — and moved to the city in 2011. Along with the above listed publications, he wrote liner notes for dozens of albums and contributed to multiple books including Rolling Stone publications, titles such as “Icons of Rock” and all six editions of the Trouser Press Record Guide.

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Intensely private, he shared few details about his illness even with his closest friends; information on survivors and funeral arrangements was not immediately available.

Additional reporting by Randy Haecker.

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