It was a depressing start to the week when ITM reported on Monday that live-wire New York drummer Jerry Fuchs – skinsman of choice for the likes of The Juan MacLean, LCD Soundsystem, !!! and Maserati – had been killed in a freak elevator accident in Brooklyn.

In the days following the drummer’s untimely death, there’s been an outpouring of sympathy from fans of the number of acts Fuchs played with, as well as from the friends and artists who knew Fuchs, with a number paying tribute to the drummer online.

Alex Frankel, one half of DFA disco duo Holy Ghost! who was one of the first people to find Fuchs after his horrific fall expressed his sorrow at Fuchs’ death on the Holy Ghost! blog, describing the drummer as “relentlessly polite in a world in which manners have largely been replaced by irony and sarcasm”.

“Of course you wouldn’t assume any of this from watching him play drums…,” Frankel wrote of Fuchs. “He was terrifying. A machine. A beast. Uncivilized. Rude. A savant. When he got MIDI IN and MIDI OUT tattooed on his forearms I wasn’t surprised in the least…Jerry was the star of every band he played with and will be painfully missed.”

Juan MacLean leader, John MacLean similarly took to his blog to eulogise his fallen bandmate, penning an entry in which he called Fuchs “the greatest friend you could ever have”, the NME reports.

“Jerry was one of my best and most loyal friends. He was hands-down the best drummer I have ever played with or seen for that matter.”

There’s no indication at this stage if Fuchs was due to hit Australia later this year as a part of The Juan MacLean’s summer tour, and if so, how that will effect those festival appearances.