Glen “SPOT” Lockett, the renowned producer and engineer who oversaw classic recordings by Black Flag, Minutemen, Hüsker Dü, and Descendents while serving as house producer and engineer with legendary underground label SST Records, has passed away at the age of 72.
According to Carducci, Lockett spent his final years in Sheboygan to “be near his beloved Celtic music scenes in Milwaukee and Chicago.”
Lockett was born in Los Angeles in 1951. Lockett was brought up by his Native American mother, who was from New Orleans, and his African-American father, who was a Tuskegee Airman serving in WWII.
He started playing the guitar when he was 12 years old, and he once made an unsuccessful Captain Beefheart audition.
While working at a vegetarian restaurant after relocating to Hermosa Beach, California, in the middle of the 1980s, Lockett met Black Flag’s, Greg Ginn. Panic, a forerunner of Black Flag, was founded by Ginn, who hired Lockett to play bass. Using his alias as his byline, SPOT also offered album reviews to the SoCal newspaper Easy Reader.
Yet Lockett’s reputation was built through his work behind the scenes for Ginn’s SST between 1979 and 1986, lending his skills to important punk, underground, and hardcore albums.
Classics including Descendents’ Milo Goes to College, Black Flag’s Damaged, Hüsker Dü’s Zen Arcade, Meat Puppets’ Up on the Sun, and Misfits’ Earth A.D./Wolfs Blood are among the more than 100 albums he produced or engineered.
How did Glen “Spot” Lockett die?
What happened to the SST Records Producer? After a struggle with fibrosis and consequences from a stroke, Lockett passed away this morning at a medical facility in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, according to the information given on Facebook by Joe Carducci, a former SST partner.
His fibrosis started to affect his ability to breathe. He’d been using oxygen ever since and was waiting for a lung transplant, but approximately three months ago, he suffered a stroke that landed him in the hospital,” Carducci said.