Michael “Mike” Stewart (April 19, 1945 - November 13, 2002) was the guitarist for We Five

We Five

We Five was a 1960s folk rock musical group based in San Francisco, California. Their best-known hit was their 1965 remake of Ian and Sylvia's "You Were on My Mind", which reached #1 on the Cashbox chart, #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, and #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart...

. He was also the brother of John Stewart (1939-2008), a one-time member of The Kingston Trio

The Kingston Trio

The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, and Nick Reynolds...

 and later a very successful singer/songwriter, and the father of Jamie Stewart

Jamie Stewart

James "Jamie" Cyrus Stewart is the front-man of the American musical group Xiu Xiu , a former front-man of IBOPA and Ten in the Swear Jar and a current member of Former Ghosts. He was also a member of 7 Year Rabbit Cycle which has since disbanded...

, frontman of popular avant-garde

Avant-garde

Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

 group Xiu Xiu

Xiu Xiu

Xiu Xiu is an American avant-garde group originally from San Jose, California. The band is the brainchild of singer-songwriter Jamie Stewart, who has been its only constant member since its inception in 2002. His current bandmate is Angela Seo...

. Stewart eventually became a successful record producer, with one of his biggest successes being Billy Joel's Piano Man

Piano Man (album)

Piano Man is a rock album by Billy Joel, released in 1973. Piano Man, Joel's second album and his first with Columbia Records, emerged out of legal difficulties with his former label, Family Productions, and became his breakthrough album...

.

He left the music industry in the early 1990s and became a computer programmer. He later played bass in his son's band The Indestructible Beat of Palo Alto (IBOPA

IBOPA

IBOPA is nine-piece band of a mish-mosh genre personally dubbed "Cinematic Death Mambo" from Palo Alto, California. Their name is an abbreviation for the Indestructible Beat of Palo Alto, a parody on the album The Indestructible Beat of Soweto. At one point, they tried to shorten the name to...

).

Stewart died on November 13, 2002 as a result of "a long illness." An unsubstantiated internet blog rumor suggests that Stewart in fact committed suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

.

The track "Mike" from Xiu Xiu's album Fabulous Muscles

Fabulous Muscles

The track "Brian the Vampire" is based on a child Stewart encountered during Stewart's time as a preschool teacher in California. "Mike" is a tribute to Stewart's late father Michael Stewart, who had committed suicide in 2002, while "Support Our Troops OH! " is about Stewart's view on soldiers...

concerns Jamie's reaction to his father's death.