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Jay Bennett R.I.P


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he will be missed, such a great talent responsible for much of the music i love.

 

a shame he and jeff couldn't reconcile things.

 

i think the band's next show will lean heavily on tunes that he played a large role in.

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I get goose bumps every time I see that scene......great song .....should've been on YHF if at all at least "hidden'' on the end.     -Robert

This isn't in anyway a confirmation but as of 6:58 eastern his wikipedia page has news of his death: Jay Bennett.   --Mike

Does anyone know Basil II (Robert) well? He's a huge fan of JB, is there a fast way to contact him?   --Mike

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he will be missed, such a great talent responsible for much of the music i love.

 

a shame he and jeff couldn't reconcile things.

 

i think the band's next show will lean heavily on tunes that he played a large role in.

 

 

i hope they play My Darling for him

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What news to wake up to. :upset

 

I'm still at loss of words, and none could ever describe the impact he & his music had on my life anyway. I wouldn't be sane anymore if it wasn't for Jay & Jeff and Summerteeth, which will forever be my favorite Wilco album (although I don't think it's their best), no matter what they still might put out. "Curiosity" is always on every "Best songs that have ever been written"-list I put together, and although I despised how he used the "Pillowy Star & Cracked Door Moon" lyric bit on his new album, I did & do believe that he did it because it might possibly be his lyric to begin with.

 

Jay,

 

thank you for the music, for the words, for putting my life back on track in many ways. I wish we had known earlier about the surgery and the financial problems that occured with it, maybe having more time to help out would have made your later actions obsolete.

 

Go rest your head on a Pillowy Star and a Cracked Door Moon that says you haven't gone too far.

 

:cryin

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im gonna play it at a show im doing tuesday, if that means anything.

 

i feel really sad. jay was at a really rough point in his life.

 

 

It means a lot...wish i could attend the gig.

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A new article in the Tribune was posted a short time ago. It's Greg Kot's take on this very sad news.

 

Jay Bennett dies at age 45: Ex-Wilco member and musician extraordinaire

 

 

The first time i played WTA and "You Never Know" came on, for some reason I thought to myself 'Man this sounds like a song that Jay would love playing on.' It seems kinda weird that it was the first thing i thought of when i played that song. It seems even stranger now, but i do think he would've loved it.

 

Rest in peace, Jay. You were one of the most important contributors to some of my favorite albums by my favorite band. They would've never sounded quite the same without you. I hope you died knowing how many lives you were able to help change for the better. Mine included. You will be missed.

 

~Aaron

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Sad and shocking news. Bizarre for me since my friend made me a DVD of Wilco from 5-23-95. Which he gave me Saturday the 23rd and tonight around 2 a.m. I went to go pop on my dvd player in my room and I was thinking I haven't been on VC in awhile. So I was pretty shocked when I logged in.

 

But yeah it's bizarre that after having a lopsided collection of post 02 shows, I finally can get a chance to see what looks like an amazing show from early on. Especially since I was really looking forward to seeing Jay Bennett on this dvd. So it was very shocking to me to see the sad news as my dvd was loading.

 

Kristofor

 

PS Earlier today I was watching Misunderstood and A Shot In The Arm on youtube from some festival in 1999 that doesn't list a date or venue. It's posted from Wilcoclub. Something was going through my head I guess to look up older Wilco shows. It's weird that with a new cd that I'm starting to go further back and get older shows. Now all those old shows that I've missed out on watching/listening will be sad.

 

 

RIP Jay Bennett

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a nice piece from the blog, "Absolute Power Pop"

 

It was with great sadness that moments ago I learned that Jay Bennett, formerly of Wilco, died today at the age of 45. Sadly, most people will end up remembering him as the "obnoxious" guy that Jeff Tweedy had to boot out of the band during the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot sessions in 2001, courtesy of the documentary I Am Trying To Break Your Heart. I'll remember him as a kind of mad pop genius, and I've always been of the opinion that Wilco went downhill after he was ousted from the band.

 

Bennett was an accomplished multi-instrumentalist, and he joined Wilco for their critically acclaimed 2nd album, Being There. But it was 1999's Summerteeth when Bennett really took over. Its swirling pop melodies and walls of sound were as much Bennett as they were Tweedy, and it stands as a pop masterpiece in my book (the lovely ballad "My Darling" was a Bennett composition, for one). And his stamp was all over the avant-garde sounds of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (he was sacked at the end of the recording sessions). I don't mean to belittle what Tweedy did on these albums, but without Bennett playing Lennon to his McCartney (or the other way around), neither of these discs would have been the classics they were. In 2002, Bennett teamed up with Edward Burch to release The Palace at 4AM, an overlooked gem that let him unleash his inner Jeff Lynne on a series of densely produced pop nuggets, the highlight of which is "Shakin' Sugar", an outtake from the YHF sessions also known as "Alone", and one of the best ELO songs Lynne (or Bleu in LEO) never wrote. Bennett wasn't the world's greatest singer, but he does a passable Elvis Costello on songs such as "Whispers and Screams" and "Puzzle Heart", while "Talk to Me" and "Drinking on Your Dime" are also standouts. His turn on another Wilco outtake, the aching ballad "Venus Stopped the Train", is also excellent. I can't find a Lala embed for it, but you can listen to it through Rhapsody here:

 

Bennett's solo career after Palace was kind of checkered. He released a couple of acoustic-based albums, which to me just weren't his metier. His 2007 release The Magnificent Defeat was a step back in the right direction, and he had a new album in the can before his death. Meanwhile, at least in my opinion, Wilco since he left has had a musically aimless and unfocused sound, and I haven't been much of a fan of A Ghost is Born or Sky Blue Sky, and what little I've heard of Wilco (The Album) isn't hearkening back to the glory days of turn-of-the-century Wilco. Meanwhile, Bennett in recent times has continued to come off as an unsympathetic character; his most recent stint in the news came from a lawsuit he filed against Tweedy regarding royalties from I Am Trying to Break Your Heart. But before anyone makes him out to be the 100% bad guy, remember that Tweedy has left quite a "body count" in his wake when it came to musical partnerships; aside from his acrimonious break with Jay Farrar in Uncle Tupelo, he's managed to purge everyone sans John Stirratt from the early days of Wilco, and until recently the band was a revolving door of supporting players.

 

Jay Bennett will be missed, but I'd already been missing him for years. Maybe in death he'll get the credit he was due in Wilco. Rest in peace, Jay.

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Sad news. I always felt Jay was sort of searching for something that no one and nothing could give him.

 

I'm sorry for his family and inner circle. Thanks for being part of one of my favorite bands.

 

This.

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I just don't know what to say. What horrible news this morning.

I always kinda hoped they'd patch things up and everything would be ok.

How fragile and tragic.

 

He was only 45? Wow.

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