Only a month after his punk pioneering band was honored with a

career retrospective album, Dicks founding member Glen Taylor has died from

liver and kidney failure, following years of alcohol abuse.

He was said to

be in his early 40s.

According to his record company, the guitarist, who

suffered from alcoholism, passed away on or around May 9 in Austin, Texas.

Along with the Butthole Surfers, the Dicks were the torch bearers for punk

in the Lone Star state during the early 1980s. Singer Gary Floyd said of his

former bandmate, "Glen was one of the sweetest people I ever met. I truly feel

like I've lost a brother.

Dicks 1980-1986 is a 21-song history of

the band released by Alternative Tentacles in April. As the label's 200th

release, the album was expected to be a celebration. Now "the timing is sad,"

said Jennifer Fisher, an Alternative Tentacles representative.

The liner

notes for 1980-1986 contain memories of the Dicks from such notable

punks as Bob Mould, Mudhoney's Mark Arm, and the Big Boys' Tim Kerr. Wrote Ian

MacKaye of Fugazi, "They were scary, they were great, they were for real. And,

as I found, nice folk to top it off.

Mike Watt (Minutemen, fIREHOSE) said

he "considered them contemporaries like Black Flag, Meat Puppets, Husker Du,

etc., and dug their style.

The Dicks released two full-length albums of

their punk blues hybrid, Kill From The Heart (SST, 1983) and These

People (Alternative Tentacles, 1985), as well as a live split album with

the Big Boys, Recorded Live At Raul's Club (Rat Race, 1980). The band's

first single "Hate Police" was later covered by Mudhoney.

Taylor left the

Dicks in 1983 when Floyd moved the band from Austin to San Francisco. The band

stayed together for three more years, until Floyd and Lynn Perko split to form

Sister Double Happiness.