On Tuesday, October 28th, Canadian rocker Bif Naked's guitarist / Crashscene vocalist Jacen JD Ekstrom was rushed to the operating room due to an aortic dissection — a condition where the main artery (and largest) in the human body tears. As a result, JD underwent 12 hours of surgery with a 10% chance of survival. He passed away on the afternoon of November 7th.

Prior to teaming up with Bif Naked and joining Crashscene, Ekstrom was the bassist for Canadian bashers Neurosonic starting n 2007. The band's mastermind Jason Darr has posted the following tribute to Ekstrom:

"Dude, I am at a complete loss right now. I cannot, for the life of me, comprehend how something like this happens to someone as unique and special as you. I think back to the first time we met in that shit hole club in Castlegar in the early 90’s… I remember teasing you that you looked just like this guy 'Ted' that we all knew… (except he had longer hair ;-)).

It was years later before we met again when you and I were leading rival bands trying to one up each other in our tiny little music scene. We barely spoke to each other then, but I think we both knew how alike we were in many ways. We both wanted it bad and we were both relentless in our quest to stay the course and push ahead. We were both willing to put our own money where our mouths were to try and make it in the music business. We both believed wholeheartedly that we were great and just needed to push ahead to succeed. We knew that there was nothing else in this life that we loved more than music. We knew that we were special, despite what anyone else thought or said. And nothing and nobody would tell us otherwise...

It was this quality that made me invite my hugest rival to join my band and help me make it better than I could make it on my own. Even though I had not realized it at the time, you were the exact thing I needed. Someone who worked as hard as I did, believed like I did, and bet it all like I did. It was so amazing to connect with you in a way that I had never connected with anyone. You became the glue that our situation apparently needed. There was something undeniable about my excitement whenever we worked on together. And we could both tell each other how it was and we did right up to our last conversation.

For that, my friend, I am eternally grateful and I hope one day in some other space I’ll have the chance to tell you that. The world broke my heart today. I’ll miss you, dude."