James Muretich, former Calgary Herald music critic, died last week from brain cancer; he was only 54. Muretich was an excellent writer and a passionate critic who praised every music genre known to humanity, especially punk and the burgeoning "alternative" genre. I read the Herald everyday for most of the Nineties and his columns were always highlights. No mere feat in a time when I read NME, Melody Maker, Rolling Stone, Spin and the incomparable Ray Gun. Muretich helped turn me on to Pavement, especially after I read a glowing review of their Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain album.

He also championed Calgary's indie-rock scene of the Nineties, often reviewing albums and gigs by the Primrods, Field Day, Chixdiggit and Ms. Feist's own band, Placebo. This was in a glorious time when hipsters could check out bands at the Republik, Night Gallery and the Warehouse and there was no such thing as emo kids (don't get me started).

Of course most of Muretich's writings were done in a period when the Calgary Herald was a solid, if not spectacular, daily newspaper, not merely a cog in a newspaper machine. A sense of forboding ran through the Herald offices in 1996 when Conrad Black bought Southam Newspapers. Cutbacks were made, reporters were fired and allegations that Herald profits were used to fund Black's new national newspaper, The National Post. Consequently the Herald became less of a community paper and more of a collection of wire-service articles.

Despite corporate takeovers and an acrimonious newspaper strike in 1999-00, Muretich continued to review albums, interview local bands and promoted music feverishly. When he left the Herald in the early 00s, I stopped reading the paper regularly and if I ever need to be reminded of his vitality, I need only flip to today's Arts section and see a bland layout replete with uninteresting wire-service articles.

Thanks for giving everything you had for music and its aficionados, James. Rest easy.