Josh Martin, longtime guitarist for Massachusetts grindcore band Anal C**t (often displayed as A.C.) has died at age 45. According to reports from WPRI, Martin was identified as the man who plunged off the upper level of the Providence Place Mall in Rhode Island to the food court below after falling off an escalator on Monday (May 28).
Martin joined the long-running thrash band in 1996 and performed with them until 2001, re-upping in 2006 until the group called it quits for good in 2011 after more than 20 years following the death of founding singer Seth Putnam from a suspected heart attack. Always up to offend, the group had an anarchic core from its early days that included improvising lyrics and purposely playing songs with no discernible beat or melody. They reveled in releasing offensive albums such as 1997’s I Like It When You Die — Martin’s first recorded appearance with A.C. — which blitzed through dozens of sub-one minute songs such as “Jack Kervorkian is Cool,” “You Got Date Raped,” “Windchimes are Gay” and “You’re in a Coma.”
WPRI reported that Martin fell off the escalator around 10:45 p.m. on Monday and suffered severe head trauma, later dying in a hospital from his injuries. A witness told police they saw a man “clowning around and riding the rail of the escalator” at the mall’s theater level and when the man reached the downward slope of the handrail, he fell backwards off the rail and hit his head on a table in the food court below. Officials are treating the incident as an accident with no indication that Martin was pushed or jumped on purpose. Vanyaland reported that it had confirmed with Martin’s friends that he is the man who fell in the mall accident.
A Facebook page attributed to Martin said he had been living in Pawtucket, Rhode Island at the time of his death. Billboard was unable to reach a spokesperson for Martin to confirm the details of his passing at press time.
Martin and Putnam performed together in a number of other side bands including the acoustic black metal group Impaled Northern Moonforest and Adolf Satan, and Martin most recently performed in the Boston trio Failure Clinic.