Club of 27

7pm, Monday, 17th January 2005

The “Club of 27” was a special two part evening looking at the charts of Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison with the assistance of Alex Trenoweth, Andrew Morton, John Etherington, Laura Boomer and Neil Spencer.

These modern icons all died while at the same phase of their Uranus and Neptune cycles, their lives apparently measured out by sixty degrees of Neptune. Nick Kollerstrom, who compeered the evening wrote this letter to The Mountain Astrologer in September 2004

Letter to Mountain Astrologer, September 2004

The Mountain Astrologer, September 2004

Dear Editor,

Children of Dionysus

Concerning the mysterious 'club of 27', viz. the brilliant musicians whose lives have burnt out, like meteors in the sky, by the time of their Uranus-trine return: Neptune has twice the orbit period of Uranus and thus makes its sextile-return (one-sixth of its orbit) near to the time when Uranus makes its trine return - about the age of 27 (for example, one would reach the Neptune opposition at 84 years, as Uranus makes its full-cycle return). Listed here are five rock stars who died at that youthful age, together with the orbs of these two return aspects: i.e., the degrees by which Uranus exceeded or fell short of making the trine - and likewise Neptune, its sextile - between their positions at each musician's birth and death.

Kurt Cobain Ur +3º, Ne -1º (Feb. 20, 1967 - April 5, 1994)

Jimi Hendrix UR +6º, NE -3º (Nov 27, 1942 - Sept. 18, 1970)

Brian Jones UR + 4º, NE - 3º (Feb 28, 1942 - July 3, 1969)

Janis Joplin UR +8º, NE -3º (Jan 19, 1943 - Oct. 4, 1970)

Jim Morrison UR +3º, NE -3º (Dec 8, 1943 - July 3, 1970)

We are startled to realise that these heroes all left the scene four or five degrees beyond their Uranus trine return - in each case, shortly after it had chimed - while each, without exception, died just before their Neptune sextile return - around three degrees before it had happened. This suggests that some interaction was taking place between the Neptune sextile returns and the Uranus trines - the latter having arrived slightly earlier, measuring out the destiny of these rock icons.

Their youthful lives did not get as far as their first Saturn return. Thus, the primary defining feature of the 'Club of 27', in terms of lifespan, has been a Uranus-Neptune interaction - with the latter planet conferring the more exact period

- Nick Kollerstrom
London, England (Neptune rising)

Presenters

The astro-biographies are here presented by:

Alex Trenoweth - Janis Joplin
Andrew Morton - Jim Morrison
John Etherington - Brian Jones
Laura Boomer - Jimi Hendrix
Neil Spencer - Kurt Cobain

Revolution, Flower-Power and the Children of Dionysus

Alex Trenoweth

It is tempting and perhaps far too easy to point out that all the members of the Club of 27 lived hard and died young. Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones and Kurt Cobain so readily gave themselves to the hedonism, recklessness and controversy of their lives that even astrologically it is difficult to see beyond their tragic deaths, neatly marked out by a Uranus trine and Neptune sextile.

However, the members of the ‘Club of 27’ featured on this website all had prominent Uranus connections. Hendrix, left handed and inventive from an early age, was playing the guitar with his teeth and behind his head before he could train himself to play the guitar with his right hand. Jones, born into relative privilege, did not battle his way out of poverty but out of the limitations imposed by his class. Joplin, as the only woman of the Club of 27, could never see herself as worthy of being loved--and so she set out to break down not only the gender barriers of the music industry but the racial ones as well. A lover of reptiles to his family and friends long before he became known as the Lizard King to his fans, Morrison, the troublesome practical joker with an exceptionally high IQ had the rebellious and macho Mars-Uranus conjunction. Cobain, brought up in a society where perfect looks sell mediocre music, was the greasy-haired founding member of the "Grunge" music and lifestyle, was born during the Uranus/Pluto conjunction of the mid 1960‘s. It is perhaps unsurprising theses Club of 27 members frowned on the "squares" of their generation: all have a conspicious lack of the square aspect in their charts.

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