IT'S NOT EASY for artists, musical miscreants, and madmen to establish and maintain a toehold. But bassist Matthew Sperry was one of those rare few who was making it work. The 34-year-old had just finished a gig with the San Francisco production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, was a prominent, popular member of the local improv scene, and had worked with an assortment of musicians, including Tom Waits. On June 5, Sperry was struck and killed by a pickup truck in Emeryville while riding his bicycle to a new job as a sound designer at toy manufacturer Leap Frog.

"He leaves a hole in the scene and everyone's heart," said Gino Robair, an East Bay percussionist and an editor at Electronic Musician magazine. "The word mensch was the one used to describe him – übermensch."

Robair and Sperry played together regularly – in fact, they had recently recorded with German multi-instrumentalist Wolfgang Fuchs, in a sextet they called Six Fuchs. The two also performed together with composer Anthony Braxton, trombonist Gail Brand, and saxophonist John Butcher. And it was Robair who recommended Sperry to Waits, which led to the bassist's contribution on the growling visionary's last two albums, Blood Money and Alice (both on Anti), and his performance with Waits on The Late Show with David Letterman last year.

Oakland shakuhachi player Philip Gelb knew Sperry for about 13 years and introduced him to avant-garde music when they were both attending the Florida State University School of Music. When Sperry moved to the Bay Area from Seattle four years ago, Gelb enlisted his help for Pauline Oliveros's 70th birthday party and a performance of her "Double Basses at 20 Paces." They also collaborated in various projects, including a shakuhachi and bass duo that covered traditional Jewish music, a focus of continuing fascination for Sperry.

Gelb appreciated Sperry's abilities as a listener and a musician who could adapt to many genres, from jazz to rock to classical. "He had an expressive vocabulary when it came to timbre, dynamics, and different approaches to intonation. His ears were wide open – same as his heart," Gelb explained. "His reputation as a musician is international – my phone has been ringing nonstop now, all day and all night."

"In the creative sphere," Robair added, "I would say he was one of the most innovative of the jazz bassists as far as ideas he would come up with and how he would integrate them into the music without seeming silly or calling attention to what he was doing. He was a really musical person in a very deep way."

Robair and Sperry had just met to swap CD-Rs the other day, near their workplaces on Hollis Street in Emeryville. "He talked about a new phase of writing songs – 'I'm going to get into this singer-songwriter thing and explore that' – and I was excited because I was thinking of a similar thing," Robair recalled. "We were talking about how difficult it is with kids, finding the time, and he said he was going to try and map out the time to do it. I was just so excited for him. He was just getting a name for himself."

At press time, Oakland police were still investigating the accident. Friends and fellow musicians held a memorial June 9 at the Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland and were organizing at least one benefit for his wife, Stacia Biltekoff, and their two-year-old daughter, Lila. See next week's Bay Guardian for details.

Comings and goings Onetime cochair of San Francisco's AIDS Emergency Fund, dance music vocalist, and songwriter Jo-Carol Block Davidson died of a fatal aneurysm June 1 on her way to the West Coast Cabaret Semifinals Competition. A member of Jo-Lo and Rocketry, she performed alongside Martha Wash as a backup singer for Sylvester, appeared on tour with the gay dance icon, and collaborated with producer Patrick Cowley. Known as a tireless activist at rallies and benefits around the country, she played Barbra Streisand in A Karen Carpenter Christmas and starred in the one-woman show "Songs in the Key of Me" at the Marsh ... Gwyneth Paltrow may have been sighted at the Clift around the time of Coldplay's May 30 show, but otherwise she lay low. A change from the last time Gwynnie was spied with Coldplay, in Seattle, by a source who was decked out in a giant bunny suit and cavorting onstage with the Flaming Lips. Afterward, upon meeting the fashionista, he was compelled to apologize for his fluffoid, nondesigner getup

Net returns Four years along and the flames have yet to die down. Silly me, I always saw local e-mail list S.F. Indie as a random congregation of rabid indie music fans, cobbled together by former moderator and music photog Jasmine Jopling. Now, many bar crawls and much virtual vituperation later, it's still going, a veritable "listserv community of musicians, music writers, indie label honchos, die-hard fans, sycophants, and morons," according to current moderator and Granfaloon Bus member Ajax Green. And the group of eyestrain addicts and indie fanatics will toast themselves with their fourth annual party June 12 at Cafe du Nord. Harold Ray Live in Concert, the FM Knives, and Little Fuzzy perform, and oppositional souls will be gratified by DJ battles between Triple Fat Goose and the Pacific Hessian. "What started as a small group of indie music fans chatting about the latest Bay Area shows grew and grew into what is now 1,600-plus members," Green continued. "Every year we throw a party so that the online personas can argue, flirt, get drunk in person. It's kind of like a Craigslist party, but without the ass-grabbing." Just opinionated collectors, local wits, and a few asses holding forth and/or virtually firebombing all comers about everything from the Stratford Four and the Exploding Hearts to Ha-Ra and Prefuse 73.

Nothing but the hits Recent Bay Area transplant Cex got a bad rap, literally, May 23 when he got socked in the face at a show in the Mission District. The brouhaha extended to the Cex Web site, where the man otherwise known as Rjyan Kidwell blogged, "I played the third worst Cex show ever last night in S.F. A guy punched me in the jaw in the middle of my set. I don't feel like he was really committed to the punch, though, because it was super-easy to take. It didn't hurt half as much as the completely and utterly impenetrable funk that the 20 or so grown-ups in the audience were in." Cex, who recently released a new CD, Being Ridden, is obviously tired of being ridden by ingrates and hostile crowds.