Draft:Shane Baldwin

Shane John Baldwin (5th July 1962 - 30th January 2024) was a punk drummer and journalist from Bristol, United Kingdom. Initially active in the early 80s Bristol punk scene as the original drummer for Vice Squad and, secretly, Evo Stix in Chaotic Dischord, Shane later went onto establish a career as a freelance rock journalist contributing to publications such as Record Collector, Big Cheese and Vive Le Rock!

History
Initially a fan of glam rock bands such as T-Rex, Shane was an early fan of punk rock and became active in the Bristol punk scene. Shane formed Vice Squad with childhood friends Dave Bateman and Mark Hambly, as well as Beki Bondage.

Alongside his work as the University of the West of England, Shane later established himself and a freelance rock journalist for Record Collector, Big Cheese and Viva Le Rock, as well as creating a grunge-orientated fanzine called Trinkets and Baubles with his brother Clay Baldwin. This was succeeded by another fanzine called Everlong (named after the Foo Fighters song of the same name), again with Clay though its focus on grunge shifted towards punk as Clay became less involved and colleague Dave Lown largely took over from Clay. Shane also developed close relations with various record labels through this journalism work, such as Cherry Red Records. This freelance work meant the vast majority of punk releases arrived through Shane’s letterbox, and thus there would have been very few punk or punk-adjacent bands from the 1980s to the 2020s that Shane was not familiar with. Shane ultimately had a progressive attitude toward new styles of punk music, embracing newer, and younger bands, and generally didn’t subscribe to purism or uphold any particular punk style.

In 2015, Shane released Last Rockers: The Vice Squad Story, which was a book about Vice Squad that Shane had been working on since the mid-90s.

Things took a turn when COVID-19 saw the University of the West of England (where Shane worked) implement a work-from-home policy. Shane was not very technically-minded and struggled to work remotely from computer rather than in the office place, creating a great deal of stress. Shane fell while walking, hitting his head and resulting in mobility issues. The true cause was never known, but Shane was unable to properly walk again, and later became almost entirely immobile. Shane abruptly had to withdraw from his freelance work, and became largely restricted to his house. There were many attempts to improve his mobility through the hospital, physio and rehabilitation, but Shane would constantly fall and have to be taken to hospital. His fear of falling grew, and he became unable to stand by himself.

On 30th January 2024, Shane was taken to Southmead Hospital with a stomach bug that was assumed to be routine. However, Shane unexpectedly passed away at roughly 18:30 with his wife at his side.