News surfaced today on Facebook about the passing of drummer Bobby Tak on or aroundAugust 8th, 2025. Bobby had been quietly battling an illness and had been largely absent from social media since earlier this year. I had quite a few conversations with Bobby for our book, mostly centered around The Cichlids. He was at times forthcoming and at others kinda difficult. Which tracks with the duality so many who knew him well describe. Here’s a snippet from our discussion about the Cichlids early days and a video he shared with me:

Tak: Zeds (Z-Cars) gave us our start at Rollo’s. They let us come up and do a few songs while we were still in incubation. I’ll always owe those guys, and will always love them. Was at Peter’s last show. RIP. Zeds were really the first band I saw in Florida who broke the mold. They were pioneers and opened doors for many other bands.

JS: I ‘m really enjoying their music, and learning about them.

Tak: Tight Squeeze also did a lot to help us. Am still friends with Coz and John. Did you know that Teddy Rooney was briefly a Cichlid? He never appeared on stage with us. It didn’t work out, and when I met Susan, and found out she played bass, I knew we had that missing fourth piece.

JS: Oh yeah, I’d head about Teddy!

Tak: They (Tight Squeeze) are good guys, except the time Allen jumped on their white Steinway! He’s lucky I got him out of the club alive that night. Fortunately they weren’t tough guys, and I was able to talk his way out of it, but boy were they pissed!

Tak: I think the Zeds were a very important part of the SoFla story. Time for bed, cheers!

Goodnight Mr. Tak.