Author: J T. Ramsay

Jay Bennett: 1963 — 2009

I heard the news ear­ly Mon­day morn­ing, but it did­n’t sink in until I read Aquar­i­um Drunk­ard’s post this morn­ing: Jay Ben­nett has died. There are times that I’m embar­rassed to admit it now, but once upon a time I was a pret­ty rabid Wilco fan, and I always had a fond­ness for Ben­net­t’s con­tri­bu­tions to the band’s sound. The leap they made between the time he arrived and Yan­kee Hotel Fox­trot is a con­sid­er­able one, and it’s hard to imag­ine Wilco ever amount­ing to any­thing with­out his influ­ence, espe­cial­ly on their break­through album Sum­mer­teeth.

Wilco played the sound­track to a num­ber of sig­nif­i­cant moments in my life. I was floored when I saw them with Helen at Coop­er Riv­er Park in Sep­tem­ber 2000 (setlist here). As the sun set behind the stage, I knew I’d seen a band on the cusp of big­ger things. Lit­tle did I know that he’d be out of the band with­in a year. I con­tin­ued to love the band, and saw Son­ic Youth open for them in 2003, but it just was­n’t the same. I stopped lis­ten­ing to their music short­ly there­after. The cult of Tweedy proved too much to take.

I winced when I first saw Sam Jones’ I Am Try­ing to Break My Heart. Now I just feel betrayed by it. Is it pos­si­ble that both Ben­nett and Tweedy were mega­lo­ma­ni­a­cal jerks hell-bent on their per­son­al vision for YHF, nei­ther bet­ter than the oth­er? Jay Ben­net­t’s char­ac­ter assas­si­na­tion in that film will for­ev­er pre­serve the notion that he played Hed­wig for­ev­er after to Tweedy’s Tom­my Gno­sis, Ben­nett often play­ing — coin­ci­den­tal­ly? — the same town on the same night as Wilco, albeit at a much tinier venue.

Ben­net­t’s fall was the only truth Jones cap­tured. Watch­ing him rein­vent him­self in tiny clubs after con­tribut­ing to a band on the verge of their great­est suc­cess still feels like a punch in the gut.

Now I’m lis­ten­ing to his last album, What­ev­er Hap­pened I Apol­o­gize, which you can down­load free from Rock Prop­er here. Like his oth­er solo efforts, it’s a stripped-down affair that isn’t exact­ly my cup of tea, but one can’t help but lis­ten to the song “Talk and Talk and Talk” and think that he’s address­ing Tweedy, though that may be over­reach­ing a bit. If he is, it only points up how pro­found­ly hurt he was by their split. Now they’ll nev­er be able to rec­on­cile what­ev­er dif­fer­ences they may have still had.

I may be inter­view­ing Wilco as they do press for their forth­com­ing record, Wilco the Album. I’m hope­ful that they’ll be able to talk about Jay and help us bet­ter under­stand who he was.

Jay Ben­nett died Sun­day. He was 45.

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Why I Love Where I Work

I know I’ve been talk­ing a lot about beer and the music indus­try here, but I want­ed to stop for a moment to talk a bit about my work. Since I got back from my long over­due trip to Den­mark, I’ve been invit­ing bands into the Com­cast Cen­ter for inter­views and ses­sions in our lounge, CIM City. Last week, I had Mastodon in to talk about their new album, Crack the Skye. This week the Ther­mals came in to talk about their new record, Now We Can See, and they were nice enough to play a few songs, too! It’s been some­thing of a life­long dream real­ized and it would­n’t have been pos­si­ble with­out being sur­round­ed by peo­ple who weren’t only will­ing but excit­ed to work on projects like this. It’s impos­si­bly cool!

It’s also intense­ly reward­ing. I’ve been thrilled to talk to bands I love in a free­wheel­ing inter­view style that real­ly cap­tures their per­son­al­i­ties and brings fans clos­er to them and their music. I can’t wait to share clips from both shoots with you!

What else have I been up to? I’m get­ting back to writ­ing more often now that I have a great intern help­ing me with the day-to-day issues at comcast.net/music. I’d love to get back where I was before our last crop of interns left, when I was writ­ing some­thing every day that could be fea­tured some­where on the music page. It’s a chal­lenge to pro­duce mate­r­i­al that real­ly res­onates with an audi­ence that’s grown accus­tomed to a steady diet of gos­sip, but when artists like Bruce Spring­steen are plagued by Tick­et­mas­ter, there’s a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to speak out about the ways in which the music indus­try is still pun­ish­ing fans at the very moment they should be falling over them­selves to please them.

Last­ly, I record­ed my first voice-over yes­ter­day. This, too, is some­thing of a life­long dream. Peo­ple have been ask­ing me if I’ve thought about doing radio for years, so when I got a chance to read for a forth­com­ing web series on Fan­cast, I leapt at the chance. It’s a real­ly fun con­cept that gave me a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to read in my best Movie­fone voice, which I don’t do near­ly enough these days. I’ll be sure to post that here when it goes live. I’d love to hear what you think.

None of this would be pos­si­ble if I weren’t sur­round­ed by great peo­ple who are will­ing to take a chance on pro­duc­ing the sort of music con­tent I think appeals to peo­ple who love music…like me!

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I’m Interviewing Mastodon Today

Today is a real­ly excit­ing day and not just because it’s Fri­day and the sun is final­ly shin­ing. I’m bring­ing Mastodon into the Com­cast Cen­ter to talk about their new album, Crack the Skye! I know that inter­view­ing a band on tour isn’t that big a deal, but it’s a major step for­ward for comcast.net/music as I try to work more orig­i­nal music con­tent into my work­flow. The idea of hav­ing reg­u­lar inter­view and per­for­mance fea­turettes is one I hope bands, labels, and fans will appre­ci­ate. Of course, the pos­si­bil­i­ty of my face being some­where in the video on demand music fold­er is excit­ing as well.

I know. I used the word “work­flow.” If you’re pro­fes­sion­al­ly involved in any aspect of the music busi­ness, espe­cial­ly in edi­to­r­i­al, you already know how dif­fi­cult it is to do this sort of thing when peo­ple are clam­or­ing to find out whether or not Madon­na will be allowed to adopt in Malawi. Take my word for it: it’s hard.

Hav­ing said that, the Ther­mals are com­ing in next week to play a few songs for us before their show at John­ny Bren­da’s next Tues­day night. I’m real­ly look­ing for­ward to that, too! It’s an excit­ing time. Now the key is just build­ing momen­tum. Wish me luck!

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Our Trip to Denmark



Ten years. Had it real­ly been so long? Before Helen and I got on the plane to Copen­hagen, it was hard to believe that when I last vis­it­ed Den­mark, I had just fin­ished row­ing at the Hen­ley Roy­al Regat­ta. Before that, as some of you know, I lived in Den­mark for a year as an exchange stu­dent. That was sud­den­ly 13 years ago. I had no idea I’d be stum­bling over so many mile­mark­ers as Helen and I pre­pared to vis­it my Dan­ish friends and host fam­i­ly, but there I was, trip­ping over them with prac­ti­cal­ly every step I took. I could only hope for a soft landing.

And what a soft land­ing it was. When Helen and I arrived at Copen­hagen air­port, we met my old friend Tom­my, who, along with his part­ner Camil­la and their son Alexan­der, would be our hosts while we stayed in town. They’re great friends, the kind of peo­ple you can recon­nect with after years of being out of touch and just pick up where you left off. It’s an amaz­ing feel­ing, and as Helen not­ed, the sort of thing that makes you feel at home wher­ev­er you are. They were great hosts and their son Alexan­der is a great lit­tle boy!

We began our tour of Den­mark by tak­ing a relax­ing spin around Copen­hagen’s canals. It was the per­fect thing to do after sit­ting on a plane for over sev­en hours. We soaked up the Dan­ish sun and did a lit­tle sight­see­ing from the com­fort of a boat. If you’re head­ed to Den­mark, this is a smart tourist move. It gives you a pret­ty com­plete sense of the city so you’re not dis­ori­ent­ed lat­er in your trip.

Helen and I con­tin­ued down Mem­o­ry Lane the fol­low­ing day by tak­ing a trip to Skan­der­borg. I lived in the heart of Jut­land’s lake dis­trict for a year — and what a year it was! Do you remem­ber the win­ter of 1995–96? It was ter­ri­ble! Den­mark usu­al­ly does tem­per­ate win­ters, but this was an excep­tion. Look at the lake in this map. Pret­ty big, right? It froze! That had­n’t hap­pened in 25 years and it has­n’t hap­pened again since. Need­less to say, it was a mem­o­rable year.

Intro­duc­ing Helen to Skan­der­borg and the Schmidt fam­i­ly was like solv­ing the last piece of the puz­zle. Helen and I met the year I returned for Den­mark and she’s spent about a third of her life hear­ing about this place and these peo­ple. A lot of my iden­ti­ty is built around the year I lived abroad. It may sound strange, but Den­mark is home to me, too. Maybe you can go home again?

Now that I’ve final­ly recov­ered from jet lag, I’m going to be post­ing pho­tos and lit­tle sto­ries to accom­pa­ny them here, recount­ing our belat­ed hon­ey­moon — or baby­moon, depend­ing on how you look at it. It was an amaz­ing trip. I can’t wait to share it with you.

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Holger Danske


Hol­ger Danske

Orig­i­nal­ly uploaded by J T. Ramsay

We’re back! I’m still feel­ing a lit­tle jet-lagged, but I’m so hap­py to have intro­duced Helen to my host fam­i­ly and Den­mark. I’ll be writ­ing more lat­er in the week about our trip, along with a cau­tion­ary tale regard­ing the lim­its of pow­er adapters overseas.

In the mean­time, enjoy my pic­ture of Hol­ger Danske, rest­ing in the cold depths beneath Kro­n­borg Cas­tle, which you know from Hamlet!

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