Many moons ago, Nora Guthrie, the daughter of legendary folk singer Woody Guthrie, found a shoebox full of her dad’s lyrics. British punk-folk musician Billy Bragg and the alt-country/Americana band Wilco agreed to put them to music, and an album called Mermaid Avenue was released in 1998 to much critical acclaim.
A couple of weekends ago, Billy Bragg and Wilco finally performed those songs live for the first time ever. You can check out the concert audio here — but note that it will only be available to stream until Thursday.
But that’s not why we’re here. We’re here for the forgotten genius of that era of the band Wilco. His name was Jay Bennett.
As is often the case with bands, there was an acrimonious split. Wilco founder Jeff Tweedy fired Jay.
Which is a shame, because Jay had so much to do with shaping and expanding Wilco’s sound during that era, as a multi-instrumentalist, and engineer, and producer.
According to friends and former band members (Wilco would not comment for this story), Bennett’s contributions helped transition the group from its ragged folk and country roots to the multidimensional pop that gave them critical and commercial flight. — From this 2009 Chicago Magazine article by Mark Guarino
He was part of three Wilco albums: Being There, Summerteeth, and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. In my humble opinion, that was the best version of the band. And Jay doesn’t get enough credit. Quite to the contrary, he was portrayed as a bit of a villain in the Wilco-authorized movie I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.
It got ugly. Jay eventually sued Jeff for breach of contract. This was in May of 2009. Per Wikipedia: The suit came less than two weeks after Bennett publicly revealed that he needed hip replacement surgery which he could not afford due to his health insurance considering the situation a “pre-existing condition.
And then it just got sad. On May 24, 2009, Bennett died unexpectedly in his sleep… The Champaign County coroner reported about one month later that Bennett’s death was accidental, and was the result of an overdose of the prescription painkillerFentanyl.[12][13] He was wearing a Duragesic patch on his back when his body was found, said Champaign County Coroner Duane Northrup.
Jay needed something for the hip pain. It’s the same way Tom Petty – who did his last tour with a broken hip – died.
28 years after Mermaid Avenue, Jeff Tweedy gave a lovely shout-out to Jay from the stage.
“Jay Bennett was a huge part of all these songs… these songs wouldn’t be here without Jay… He was a big champion of this project… Continue to think about him and continue to remember him, please…”
It’s funny how life paths diverge. Jeff Tweedy has had sustained success for decades with Wilco. Jay Bennett died waiting for a surgery he couldn’t afford. I’m sure both Jeff and Jay wished things had ended differently, if not professionally then at least personally. But I’m glad Jeff paid tribute to Jay at the show. Giving credit where credit was due.
Woody Guthrie’s lyrics were lost for a long time, but finally came to life thanks in a large part to Jay. It’d be a shame if his contribution were lost to the mists of time.
“The great thing about the work that he did is that it’s there for others to hear forever.”
Ken Coomer, Wilco’s former drummer
If you really want to dig deeper, check out this Medium post and the Jay Bennett documentary below.
While I was on my “Big Sky Country” trip a couple of weeks ago (see this recent post for more), I simply had to make a pilgrimage to the site of Evel Knievel’s ill-fated Snake River Canyon “Sky Cycle” jump. Or attempted jump, more accurately.
Evel’s name probably doesn’t mean much to this generation, raised on “Dude Perfect” videos. But to men of a certain age — Boomers and Gen X fellas — his name and exploits are etched into our memory banks. He was a daredevil hero to us wee lads. Jumping the fountain at Caesar’s Palace. Jumping cars. Jumping trucks. Jumping buses. Eventually jumping the shark. (Literally – he was supposed to jump 13 sharks in Chicago, but crashed during his practice jump. That wound up being his final stunt attempt.)
He was on ABC’s Wide World of Sports all the time. The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat all rolled up into one star-spangled jumpsuit.
You probably can’t read it on the sign in the photo above, but it list “70 stunts and a world record 433 broken bones…” Watch this clip and you’ll understand the latter part of that equation.
He broke a lot of bones, but he sold a ton of toys sold too!
Even Marvel Comics got in on the action.
Evel’s most successful stunt (133 feet) happened just up the road from me, at Kings Island amusement park, in October of ’75.
But his most famous attempt was more than a year earlier, jumping the Snake River Canyon. 1600 feet. And he originally planned to try it in a motorcycle! His engineer, Bob Truax, talked him out of that. Thus the “Sky Cycle” was born. But the parachute deployed early (some suspect Evel pulled it himself), and Evel crashed into the rocks below.
There’s not much left at the launch site now – just the dirt pile and a couple of concrete footers that once held the ramp.
But it was weirdly moving… maybe even semi-spiritual… when I got to see it. Maybe because every kid wants to fly. Every kid likes to test the limits. And Evel showed us the way.
This YouTube comment sums it up for guys like me:
This song is pure 70s soft rock schmaltz, but somehow it works.
He can climb a mountain
Jump across a winding river
Once he’s made his mind up, there’s nothing he won’t try
There’s something deep inside him
Lusting for the thrills that drive him
Yet he knows someday, he’s gonna have to face, that canyon in the sky…
I’m not into motorsports of any sort. I blame that time in high school when my friends and I were doing our own late night time trials on my friend Jon’s younger sister’s moped. Complete a loop from his house – down the street, up a hill, another straightaway, then back down the hill.
I was clearly on track for the fastest lap — at least in my head — until I wiped out in turn 4, going down the hill. I still have a scar on my knee from it. Jon’s sister’s moped was none the worse for wear though. Which was a good thing, since she wasn’t home and had no idea that her brother and his friends had commandeered it.
But this past weekend, I had the chance to go to the Indy 500. I’d been to “Carburetion Day” before, but never the actual 500. It was a bucket list thing, and I thoroughly enjoyed the entire experience. Especially the pageantry leading up to the race. They had Indy legends like AJ Foyt, Al Unser Jr., and my personal fave, Mario Andretti, taking a lap around the track, only this time in the back of pickups, not behind the wheel. Then they brought out classic Indy cars from all eras of the race. The National Anthem and “Back Home Again in Indiana.” Navy flyovers. The Purdue marching band. Caitlin Clark as the honorary grand marshal. Brendan Fraser as the honorary starter. “Racers, start your engines.”
I was there with 3 other “rookies” so we did our best to take it all in. The pure chaos of the infield, and especially the “Snake Pit.” Imagine the largest football tailgate party you’ve ever attended, then take that times a thousand. You can bring in your own coolers – where else can you do that?
350,000 people – the largest single-day sporting event in the world. What are the chances that a former co-worker would be seated in the same section?
Actually, in addition to Rob (above), another former co-worker of ours also was in our section, a few rows in front of us, with her dad, husband, and two kids.
It’s not lost on the tree hugger in me that hundreds of thousands of cars were stuck in traffic while waiting to get into the track so they could see 33 drivers waste a lot more gas… when the Strait of Hormuz is closed and gas is $5 a gallon. The concept seems anachronistic. Maybe 10 years from now the race will feature battery pack changes instead of refueling. A boy can dream, can’t he?
And yes, it’s “four left turns” as Indy/NASCAR disparagers like to point out. But there were 70 lead changes (a record) and it also was the closest finish in Indy 500 history. Not bad for a bucket list bonus.
I can honestly say I have zero desire to see a race at any other track. But I’d go back to Indy for sure.
This past Friday, I spent about an hour visiting the box offices at three different concert venues in the Cincinnati area, buying tickets for seven different shows for my friends and for myself.
It saved us $180 in ridiculous Live Nation/Ticketmaster fees. Actually make that $180.14.
I despise all the made-up fees that Live Nation/Ticketmaster charges.
The lawsuit, filed by the Justice Department alongside numerous states, argues the company has used its position across concert promotion, venue ownership and ticketing to stifle competition and increase costs for fans.
Attorney General Merrick Garland previously said Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s control of the industry means concertgoers face “a seemingly endless list of fees,” according to reporting cited by Newsweek.
The lawsuit is spot-on. The Live Nation/Ticketmaster monopoly is costing fans money. And their strong-arming tactics would make a Mafioso running a protection racket blush. “If you want to play our venues, you need to use Ticketmaster. And you need to pay us a higher percentage…”
I had texted several music-loving friends in advance, and told them I was going on a ticket run, and to let me know what tickets they needed. I was like a cast member on Alice, taking orders, but instead of eggs and coffee it was Spoon and Sugar.
My first stop was the box office at the indoor/outdoor venue in Newport, KY. (It’s called MegaCorp Pavilion – a local logistics company bought the naming rights, when they should’ve spent that money on coming up with a name for their company that doesn’t sound like a fictional company from Office Space.) Their box office is only open Tues-Fri. from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. (extremely unfriendly toward in-person purchase for working stiffs). I bought:
3 tickets to Spoon with The Beths (great double bill!)
4 tickets to Death Cab for Cutie with Jay Som (another great double bill)
3 tickets to Courtney Barnett
2 tickets to Sugar
Then it was off to Bogart’s, the long-in-the-tooth club venue near the University of Cincinnati. I got a ticket to the 40th anniversary show of a band that started in Cincinnati, the Afghan Whigs. Mercury Rev is the opener. The Afghan Whigs played dozens of shows at Bogart’s back in the day, so this should be a nice homecoming set.
My final stop was the Ludlow Garage. I got a ticket to the Patterson Hood/John Moreland show. And I bought four for the Built to Spill show, with Wussy as the opener.
Lucky for me that the bands I like aren’t typically going to sell out a venue. Pity the poor folks who want prized tickets to high-demand tours. They have to pay through both nostrils.
And having used websites and ticketing apps for both Ticketmaster and much smaller ticketing sites, I can assure you that Live Nation is NOT using all those fees to create a better user experience. Their website and their app are awful.
Whenever I can, I’m gonna stick it to the Live Nation man. A Reddit user quoted in the article above said it best:
On Valentine’s Day, FeedSpot released their list of the “100 Best Indie Music Podcasts.”
You probably didn’t even know that there were 100 podcasts about indie music. (Neither did I!)
But if you scroll down the list… keep scrolling… just a bit more… there, that’s it! You’ll find this gem:
“97X – Rumblings from the Big Bush” is the weirdly-named, shoddily produced podcast that I co-host with my friend and former 97X colleague Dave. I’ve posted about it before:
My 97X buddy Dave and I started a podcast a few years ago, recording episodes in my basement. We had no idea what we were doing. Still don’t, honestly. “Shoestring budget” would be inaccurate. No budget. Actually it’s a “loss leader” given the hosting and website fees we pay. We’ve done very little promotion of it. But somehow, someway, the small-but-mighty group of people who loved 97X found it.
The podcast about 97X seems like a fool’s errand. Very few people listened to the station when it existed, and it’s been off the air for two decades (or a mere 15 years if you include the dot-com era). But the people who listened to the station absolutely loved it. And somehow, some way, despite the lack of promotion (and the weird name of “97X Rumblings from the Big Bush”), they found the podcast. As I tell Dave all the time “every time we publish a new episode, we make 150 people very happy.” Through the pod, we’ve been able to reconnect with old friends, meet new ones, talk to musicians we admire (the latest episode features two members of Too Much Joy), and create a place for folks to relive some of their fondest memories. And hanging out with Dave — one of the most naturally funny people I’ve ever met — is always a treat.
Never heard of our podcast? You’re not alone. 99.99% of the world has never heard of it, much less heard it. But for the few, the proud, the folks who remember a tiny “modern rock” station in Oxford, Ohio, the podcast was pretty darn cool. It helped them reconnect with the station, the music, and the people that meant a lot to them.
“I am not sure you guys realize just what impact having this modern rock format has had on my life… your podcast has brought about all of these thoughts, feelings, and memories of the soundtrack of 21 years on my life. I thank you for playing your part in it back then and I thank you for creating this podcast to help me process just what those 21 years have meant to me.”
“Thanks for the pod. It is like finally being able to talk with someone about the treasure that was WOXY.”
We tried to end the podcast a couple of years ago, but we missed it.
Now we’re back with “Season Two”… which really just means more of the same hijinks.
#33 on the FeedSpot list is great. But the measures that matter most to Dave and me are having fun, and creating something that our (admittedly tiny) audience enjoys. We’re still making 150 people happy every time we release an episode. Like Seth Godin says, “that’s enough.”
You probably won’t come up with a better mousetrap. But you might find the empathy and focus to find a small group of people with a more specific problem and solve it for them in a way that earns you trust, traction and word of mouth.
That’s enough.
BTW, the latest episode features our interview with Chuck Cleaver and Lisa Walker, the leaders of the band Wussy, and two of my all-time favorite songwriters.
Anyone who has flown more than a few times probably has an airline horror story. Comedians have built bits, or even entire sets, around them.
Dan Piraro has an airline horror story too. He’s the guy who created the Bizarro comic strip, and still does the Sunday version. (His friend Wayno now handles the Monday through Saturday panels.)
In his blog post from mid-December, Dan recounts his air travel travails as he and his wife were trying to get back to their home in Mexico. But he also provides a very healthy dose of perspective.
Please read the entire post if you can. If not, chew on this nugget like it’s airline food:
My wife and I have befriended numerous Mexicans who have never flown on a commercial airline or visited anywhere farther than a half-tank of gas from home. This is common among low-income Mexicans, but they don’t complain. They place their happiness in their families and friends, not in material possessions or travel trophies. That may sound corny, but it’s true, and we find it inspiring.
It is all too easy for us developed-nation-types to forget that around 80% of the over 8 billion people on this planet have never been on an airplane, much less visited a vacation resort. And compared to the legions of displaced refugees worldwide, what my wife and I experienced over the weekend was but an annoying inconvenience compared to their treatment for months, years, or a lifetime.
Even when it’s bad, we’ve got it good.
And that perfect vacation photo on Facebook or Instagram pales in comparison to a life that seems “poor” but is actually quite rich.
They place their happiness in their families and friends, not in material possessions or travel trophies.
Kudos to Mr. Bizarro for his reality check. It’s plane (and plain) wisdom.
Damian on The Future is forever: “It was a magical time for sure! Just don’t get any paint on that 97X sweatshirt, it’ll bring down the…” Jul 4, 20:44
Andrea J McKiernan on The Future is forever: “I still wear my 97X sweatshirt when I’m painting. I have some amazing memories of those times!” Jul 4, 14:46
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