The late Rowland S. Howard, post-punk guitarist and songwriter, is set to become the second Australian musician to have a Melbourne laneway named after him, this time in St Kilda.
Mess + Noise reports that Nick Haines, a local music promoter and friend of the late Howard, is petitioning the Port Phillip City Council to dedicate an as yet unnamed laneway between Eildon Road and Jackson Street to Howard, who died of liver cancer in 2009 at age 50.
Melbourne City Council voted unanimously in 2004 to rename Corporation Lane in the city’s CBD ‘ACDC Lane‘ so it wouldn’t be the first time such a move was made, with the tribute befitting Howard both geographically – having lived in the area for many years – and musically, for playing his last gig at The Prince just down the road from the proposed site.
Councillor Serge Thompson told The Age “Knowing that Rowland used to live on Eildon Road, the suggestion that a laneway that currently does not have a name has been put by residents to honour him. We are just getting the paperwork into order. He has definitely made a mark in this city.”
Howard was a member of The Birthday Party, These Immortal Souls, Crime and The City Solution and The Boys Next Door alongside Nick Cave, who said of Howard that he was “Australia’s most unique, gifted and uncompromising guitarist.” Howard was also the subject of Autoluminescent, a 2011 documentary by Richard Lowenstein featuring Thurston Moore, Wim Wenders, Nick Zinner, Bobbie Gillespie and Henry Rollins.
Via Mess + Noise
