ARTHUR MAGAZINE ARCHIVE

Por desgracia, casi siempre me encuentro con noticias de muerte, justo cuando ocurren, y ayer me enteré de la de Jack. Vi muchos mensajes para él, sin embargo, no supe que decir. La partida de alguien siempre duele, y más aún si es alguien joven. Jack lo era. La distancia geográfica me impidió poder verle, la lejanía es grande. Pero eso no impidió escuchar sus canciones, y esa distancia inicial se hizo mas corta al oírlas. Jack tocaba como si estuviera al aldo tuyo, era parte de cualquier lugar, de cualquier sitio. Era el sonido de la tierra. Era la tierra misma. Ahora no ha hecho más que volver a ella, a su hogar.

Jack, no te conocí, pero eso no quita que me de pena que no estes aquí.

Descansa en paz, Jack.

A true underground hero is gone.

Jack and Christina Carter were kind enough to come up to play at my little restaurant in Boone, NC back in 2005. It was a small show, but Jack was so friendly and kind and played two amazing sets. I got to share dinner with the two of them and sent them off to stay at a friends house for the night. I was in awe at his playing and awfully friendly demeanor. It was a pleasure to meet him.
I’ll be putting my Opiuum Music lp on tonight in his memory.

“The very sight of that old bastard makes me happy for five days. No bloody fooling.” – overheard comment about author malcolm lowry; it also personally applies here with respect to jack

If I may offer a Jack story.

Jack came through Florida to play a few shows on this last tour. He stayed with us for the St Pete and Sarasota shows. The St Pete gig was cool, a great little place called the Hideaway Cafe that was perfectly suited with a wonderful vibe, cool crowd and craft beer. And, I got a great recording of it.

Sarasota, however, was a different story. It was at New College. First, we went to the house of the guys who were hosting the show. It was one of those nasty college duplexes with pizza boxes and dog hair and ratty couches. He pointed at the couch and said, “I’m glad I don’t have to sleep here tonight”.

We went over to the venue, a tiny little rec center on campus, only to learn that jack was to play 3rd with a lineup of 3 doom metal bands. He talked them into letting him play second and got paid in advance.

The first band was called Skunk Ape and I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard anything worse. I recorded it anyway (if anyone is interested).

Before he played, Jack took all but one guitar back out to the car.

When he got up to play, the place was full of drunk teenagers who were louder than even ol’ Skunk Ape. The PA was so bad that Jack could not get a decent sound. Since the bathroom was behind him, people had to almost step over him and bumped him several times as he played.

He played a couple of short tunes, maybe 15 minutes. I was sitting near the back and I saw him nod to me in a way that said, “get ready”. He finished his tune, snatched up his guitar and we dashed.

We got out to the car and a couple of the kids followed us out. Apparently they were fans who had been at the St Pete show. They knew the deal and even bought a bunch of vinyl from him. We laughed all the way back to St Pete. Worst Gig Ever! The guys that hosted the show were cool and really meant well but it was just not a good match.

RickO

jack at 21 grand in oakland, a couple years ago, to drunk heckler: “what are you drinking?”
heckler: “sparks”
jack: “sparks? only douche bags drink sparks”
heckler: “are you calling my mother a douche bag?”
jack: “no, i’m calling you a douche bag”

rest in peace

So sad. I knew Jack while he was living in Richmond, VA and a member of the band Ugly Head. Great guy. I remember him wanting to take the Jandek LPs from the local college radio station library. We’d often joke about that later. I mostly lost track of Jack after he moved out of Richmond, but I got to dine with him and a friend two years ago and catch up a little. I regret that I never got to see his post-Ugly Head, post-Pelt performances. But it’s wonderful to know how much he touched other people’s lives. Peace, my friend.

i’ve been wandering around in a daze since saturday… jack and i led parallel lives, for years and years we had a mutual appreciation, but it was always from afar… and whenever we would literally cross paths, it always felt like we spent more time together than we did. but about 5 or 6 years ago we began to run into each other more, and spend more time together… the parallels were angling a bit toward one another, and a few years ago they crossed in a major way… i got to tour with jack, play music with him, record him and most importantly, spend more time with him. we joked about naming the back road route from philly to westtown “the pizza – bbq thruway”… the last time i saw jack, he was at the studio to finish his thrill jockey record… i loved working with jack… he brought his no bullshit outlook straight into the chair he sat on in the studio… some cold lord chesterfields, his guitars, some mics, maybe some friends, lay it down… no good? lay it down again… how about now? we’d always know when he got it… we’d just look at each other through the glass and nod, i’d reach over to ask him if he wanted to come in an hear that one, but by the time my finger hit the talkback button, he was already on his way into the control room… so the last time he was here, it was just him. he shows up and promptly hands me a brown bag… “i brought rum, since i know you’re the rum bum… i got some killer bourbons on the road that i was not going to bring you! sorry! (laughs) so i got this instead…” 15 year haitian dark… after we finished the record, we sat across from each other and polished that bottle off… we were so happy with the new music… he had a gig the next day down the jersey shore… at 6 am we parted… drunkenly, and maybe because of it, i told him i loved him and gave him a big hug goodbye…

some things i’ll remember -

hearing “sundogs” for the first time at tommy’s tavern… the sheer physicality of that music was overwhelming…

sitting outside of the performance area with hans in st louis listening to jack control different frequencies like a marionette puppeteer… and the look of joy on his face the next day at smoki o’s…

watching him play telecaster on “the longer you wait” at black dirt…

in louisville… jack ragtiming zeppelin for moose who was sitting out in the car checking his pulse…

sitting on the outdoor deck at standard tap… jack smoked a cig, finishes it… someone else lights up and immediately a waiter is on us… “sorry, you can’t smoke here”… the man was a kingpin!

sitting at the bar at the empty bottle talking about guitars…

that night in the crappy motel on tour where we all told road stories…

watching jack and laurie dance to soul music the last time i was in philly…

and so much more… and there was so much more to come…

i’ll miss you jack…

I’m doing a radio show tribute on Thursday morning in Austin. If anyone has any song recommendations or wants to call in to talk about Jack, let me know. You can email me at andrew@kvrx.org or listen in at kvrx.org on Thursday from 7-9 am CST. Sorry it’s so early.

I took every opportunity available to see Jack play. As a guy starting out with the American Primitive style, I was in awe of how clean and fluid Jack’s playing was. And that says nothing for his skills as a songwriter, which were impeccable. I feel that Jack was able to negotiate between Fahey and Basho like no one else, while simultaneously drawing from his own interests, which were more oldtime.

I’m happy to have seen Jack play solo, and with Glenn Jones, and with Pelt. One of my goals in life was to get good enough to play with him; my hope is that someday I’ll feel like I got there. I only met him a couple of times, but I won’t forget him.

Memories:

late 90s: My sister would drive us to various points between DC and NYC as I stalked Pelt. They could levitate me. We once got a flat in the snow on a highway not far from Philly heading to New York. I thought for sure I was going to die changing the tire on the skinny shoulder. We did not turn around.

1999: After I finally scrounged together the money to pay them (for a stunning performance), Pelt told me how they had been planning to pelt me with a watermelon if I didn’t pay them. I don’t know where they got the watermelon but in my memory it was big enough to kill me.

2000: Got to hang out some with Jack and Laurie and bask in their hospitality, courtesy of Ian Nagoski. Hear of Jack’s mythical Majora collection. Bonding over Fred Neil.

2000: Jack & Ian install me in a corner at the Astrocade in Philly with Donald Miller, introducing us to each other as the two biggest Scott Walker fans in the room. Donald’s favorite is Scott 1. I’m listening to Donald and thinking to myself how good my life is. I made about $6,000 in income that year and spent all of it on alcohol.

2001: Borrowed Jack’s 10 inch of Kendra Smith’s “Guild of Temporal Adventurers” and kept it for way too long. To make up for it I gave him an early Kevin Coyne lp, which he subsequently mentioned every time I saw him after that, hilariously mangling the name in a new way each time.

2002 – 2004: Don’t see Jack much but all conversations revolve around John Martyn.

2004: Doc Watson’s pub., upstairs, a very cold February night. It seemed like only months before I had seen him nervously play his first solo guitar gig (don’t remember where or when, just know it was his first). A young Russian woman opens for Jack and plays an extremely long set. By the time Jack starts playing everyone is drunk. About half-way through the set I am hammered, and I hear a holy Terry Riley-like droning sound coming from the stage. I think someone has joined Jack on stage. A friend points out that it is just Jack and his guitar on his lap. I stare around the room in disbelief. Levitation. I realize Jack is a living guitar God and that I am blessed to bask in his sound.

2005: After another amazing show I tell Jack in all seriousness that the next time I see him he’ll be on Sony and playing in a stadium. He assures me that would not happen. I hope he knew what I meant: that he had been lifting my soul out of my body already in 1998 and that he had made astounding musical strides since then. To me, he was freedom, and I suspected that freedom would be contagious.

2006-2009: Having become a hermit, I would only see Jack occasionally though we lived in the same city. I was always happy to hear another awesome tour story.

I will miss him greatly.

Much love to Laurie and all his friends and family.

Wow, just learned about this today and it’s pretty unreal. I’ve got all kinds of fond memories of charming and quirky encounters that could go on for paragraphs, but above all I want to testify to the music itself, because I’ve heard people talk down about Jack’s solo work. I spent many hours genuinely transported and enraptured by his music, live and on recording, especially the Kensington Blues album, which became a major staple go-to album for me, a private mega-classic, an old friend that lifted my spirit every time. I’ve often had thoughts like “This is timeless music I will be listening to for the rest of my life”, and it’s a safe bet that’s true, which is a pretty big deal because there’s a lot of great music in the world always waiting around the corner. To me he was the real deal, a huge raw bundle of human beauty coming out through the fingers.

Jack would always speak reverently about the cats from the pre-electronic era (he told me once: “Charley Patton is the greatest musician that ever lived, end of story”). I always thought of him as one of those cats, the same kind of soul managing to exist in the modern world. He was pure, if that concept could possibly be defended. I’m talking about the music and the person as one package here.

I can remember times at gigs when some people would be talking and not really paying attention to Jack’s set (well, not to mention other people’s sets too), especially people in our local scene who took him for granted, but every time that sound hit my ears I was sucked into a different zone and I felt something magical and rare happening, that I was hearing some of the best music of a generation. I tapped into Jack’s music when the solo acoustic phase started; I still haven’t heard Pelt, but I heard lots of local stories and legends attesting to their greatness. Someday I will hear that music and get a more complete picture of Jack’s art. I remember that night at the Astrocade nine years ago with Ian and Donald Miller that Will mentions in the comment above–must’ve been the first time I crossed paths with Jack; I remember that stupidly loud e-bow drone wank set and how turned off I was by the drunkenness and nihilism I perceived in that group of people, but looking back I know that wasn’t representative of Jack’s muse. Jack loved his friends and the pure process of hanging out and playing music with them. He was incredibly humble and supportive of kindred musicians, whether it was joining them for a few pieces during their set or vice versa. Sometimes gentle, sometimes gruff, he was a real catalyst for his musical community.

Jack and me were always like oil and water, about as opposite as possible in almost every way, but our conversations grew warmer as the years went by, especially as I became a genuine fan of his music and we both valued that simple, honest bond of loving that music and having a good heart. We were the kind of friends that could never be buddies, as in just hanging out and shooting the breeze, but there was a real soft spot in our hearts way beneath the surface of the polite pleasantries we exchanged.

He loved The Doors; I was bored by raunch. I loved bands like Yes and a million other things he had gallons of colorful bile to spew on. He hung his hat on the whole druggy droney side of underground music; I was usually bored by it. He hated Derek Bailey and any kind of plink ‘n plonk, scratch ‘n sniff free improv, while I found spiritual transcendence in it and molded my life around it. He loved to smoke and drink beer; I’ve never sampled cigarettes or alcohol in my life. He loved to eat, make and talk about pizza; I was the gluten-free nutrition snob eating sprouts and raw liver. I loved science, complexity, abstraction, analysis, post-modern language games and other nonsense; he was a no-nonsense guy who valued honest, direct, and emotional experience. I could go on with these sorts of observations, but it’s mainly just stuff to laugh about because Jack was united with me and many other diverse people by huge amounts of beauty and love.

The last year that I spent around Philly I happened to live half a block away from Jack, just around the corner from Cedar and Letterly. I used to ride my bike to sunbathe at the park everyday around noon, always taking the same route, which passed right by his house on the way back. It wasn’t rare to find him on his front steps taking a smoke. Sometimes we just waved; sometimes I got a little update on the latest touring and recording experiences. It was nice to have those reminders that such a person existed, making traditional human art despite living a city and a world filled with dirty, polluted, crass, trashy, soulless, trendy, consumerist, fashion-obsessed, fast-paced, high-tech junk. Crossing paths with Jack always sent my thoughts in a refreshing direction.

Well, all kinds of other memories and thoughts, but I just wanted to say something quick and send a lot of love to my friends in Philly who are suffering this loss in a big way.

I had the vast pleasure of meeting Jack Rose for the first time in Richmond, Virginia in September 1995. I was there to visit Mike Gangloff, founder and member of Pelt, an astounding, then under-rated band that Jack had been playing with for I believe under a year, along with their newest member Pat Best. All three were Good People, but Jack was a bit of an enigma when we first shook hands.

Jack was a little wary, as southerners often are, of a New Yorker coming to visit, but when I pulled up in my car, which I was living out of while traveling the U.S. for a year, I was playing a tape of the then hard-to-find Dead C classic “Harsh 70′s Reality” 2xLP. I was instantly accepted into Jack’s world, and the first hour of quiet suspicion lead to an afternoon, evening and night drinking whiskey, smoking and playing records and tapes of bands we both loved.

I gave copies of Dead C and other New Zealand bands to Jack to hunt down later (he was never a music pirate, but that goes without saying) while he turned me on to bands I’ve never heard of, the most important being Charalambides, the then three-piece of Tom & Christina Carter and Jason Bill, not as a suggestion, but as a strict, forceful order (with much finger wagging) that I seek them out when I made way to Houston, TX in my travels. I arrived a few weeks after they quit their weekly gig at some bar/club/café but I later got to meet them and consider them good friends to this day. It was Tom Carter who called today to tell me the bad news; thanks to Tom for not letting me find out by reading it somewhere.

The reason I bother explaining the above is that many people found Jack to be “stand-offish” or “hard to deal with”, because they confused the combination of his shyness, his extreme self-criticism about his own music, his sudden sarcastic wisecracks, and his quiet / gregarious dual nature. Jack could sit silently for hours listening to music or letting people he didn’t find interesting talk away (although too polite to leave or say something) or could be one of the most knowledgeable, talkative, outright Music Fanatics… nay, Freaks, with a capital “F”, that I’ve had the pleasure to know.

Being an overly talkative music slut myself, it’s always wonderful to meet a kindred spirit, but with Jack it was something more – he was even more enthusiastic than I, and to my surprise, one of the 3-4 people I call friends who knew far, far more about the music we both loved than I. So my visit to Richmond sparked a long-lasting, wonderful friendship, one of the few where I felt I always received far more than I could possibly give. The kind of friendship that should be too rare to end.

Back then, Jack didn’t want to talk about his “blues roots” – rumor was he that he was a young blues prodigy who gave it all up before letting himself turn into a self-centered wanker like John Mayer or Fat White Guys who think they know The Blues. He was completely into the “new” Pelt, which started as the best “back when they were good” Sonic Youth styled band, that then became something completely new and different, with all the members bringing every possible sonic reference, style, and talent to the table, to create music well-grounded with many roots, yet completely utterly unique, that will someday be recognized as far, far more important and interesting than most any music made in the 1990′s.

A disclaimer: I had the pleasure of touring, and even playing a tiny bit, with Pelt in 1998 during one of their several high-points, and their “Rob’s Choice” CD was compiled and mastered by me. And poorly named for me as well. So all I say is highly biased. But why not? Jack had strong biases, and the world was a better place for it.

Jack and I traded some tapes and kept in touch until Pelt made the mistake of doing their one and only West Coast tour, although playing at Terrastock that year (1998) made it necessary. Their set at that year’s festival is, and rightly so, considered one of the best, if not the best set of that year – played in an S.F. warehouse room of people sitting and just letting the brilliance of Pelt take them over and overtake them.

At that time, Jack was alternating between electric guitar and a tambura, which he did brilliantly, but did not showcase his brilliance: Pelt were a band of some of the best American musicians alive today, not a “Rock Star w/band” like the world of Top 40. The audience stood only for a long, necessary ovation at the end. It was beautiful, and I hope to share the many photos I took; a number of them were used for artwork on several Pelt CDs.

It was on that tour that I got to see “grumpy Jack”, another aspect of his personality that could be off-putting, but knowing him, was part of his charm. And unlike some very temperamental artists, Jack’s “grump” came out only for good reason and went away as soon as things were resolved. Anyone who could accept a little criticism or needed an ego-check found this to be yet another reason to love him. He checked me when I needed to be checked, and I thank him for that, since only a true friend will step up to that hard task.

Jack: “Man, it’s fucking hot and dry here (east Texas rest stop.)”

Me: “Dude, you should feel what it’s like at Burning Man…”

Jack: “Will you shut the fuck up about Burning Man? It sounds stupid, I’m not going, and I don’t need to keep hearing about how it’s ‘more this’ and ‘more that’ already”.

Me: ” Sorry. Yeah, I’ve been blathering about it. I’ll drop it. Thanks.”

It was about two years later, as I poorly recall, that he rang me up, asking me if I could help him with booking a solo tour in the Pacific Northwest – he’d returned to acoustic guitar and decided to follow the footsteps of his heroes, Robbie Basho (who he sent me records of that blew my mind), John Fahey (a Northwest Hero still mostly unknown outside Music Geek and European circles, much like jazz) and Peter Walker (who everyone thought was dead, much to Peter’s happiness.) I was more than willing, and made sure he knew my home was his.

And so over the years, Jack managed to make the west coast at least three, maybe four times. He was the Perfect Guest for me: I’d leave the door unlocked so he could just show up and come in, and every time was the same:

He’d bellow loudly, being a big Grizzly of a man, that he’d arrived and was going to “take a fucking shower”. I’d yell back that towels were already out, and he’d head for the bathroom, only to stop, and head back to the ‘fridge for a “beer after driving a long time”.

Fortunately I lucked out on his first visit and picked a beer he fell in love with. He’d swig it down in under a minute, often while headed for the shower, once while taking one, and we both understood that the time for “hello” and “catching up” came after that. As someone who likes my friends to feel at home in my house, I can’t think of anyone who did it better, and by just being himself, made me feel good the moment he’d arrive.

His gigs in Portland were always sparsely attended, but having lived here for so long, at least I could assure him the audience was full of people I knew to be the kind who were very picky about who they would take time out to see play live.

I always offered to record his gigs but he was, sadly, not in the habit of recording most any gigs; a reaction to Pelt’s “record everything” approach (both takes totally valid, I believe.) I would do my best to help with sound to make sure his brilliance came across, and was delighted that an insanely limited CDR release was titled “Portland, OR” with the old “Hung Far Low” coaster on the cover (don’t bother looking, all 12 copies are accounted for.) For me, it was as great an honor as Pelt’s “Rob’s Choice” but with the brilliance of not including me in particular (I loathe cameras and spotlights.) That he always included an extra “hang-over day” after playing Portland does both me and my city proud.

He was very strict about showing up insanely early to gigs, and trying hard to sound check in a town full of flakes, lousy sound-persons, and being the West Coast, always slow and late (which drove him insane). Still, we still had plenty of time to go record shopping, and after it opened, visit his claimed favorite music shop, Mississippi Records, a place that was like a crack house to us both, although having a mortgage, I was forced to show far more restraint… despite him sticking a record (never a CD!) in my face every minute and asking if I had it, and if not, that I should, “dammit!” And despite his outward gruffness, we never left that store without him handing me one of those records that I passed on buying. Jack didn’t just give his own music, but also the foundations already laid upon which he stood. Few musicians I’ve met do that.

He even had a favorite Portland pizza joint which was a long but good walk from my house, that impressed him because he had worked making pizza, including the skill to do it at home, and was, like his music, extremely, fanatically picky about proper pizza, his food, his drink, his music, and his personal life. Again, off-putting to some, but to me, the reason to live and not settle for a McLife, as he never did.

My last, best, and most sad experience spending time with Jack was when he was touring with Peter Walker (yes, I thought Mr. Walker was dead too) and getting the honor of having them stay three-plus days. Meeting Peter was an honor; finding him to be a kind, gentle, easy-going Woodstock, NY local (a fellow escapee from New York City) was even better.

Most fortunate was having the luck of their arrival happening after Jack was past his total adoration of Peter and into a “kindred spirit” relationship that made the visit full of delight and wonder for every single second – I honestly had to sleep most of day after they left. The “sad” part of the experience was the shite product that is Sony’s MiniDisc and their recorders. I had turned Jack on to Absinthe two visits prior, and so it had become am expected, de facto plan to spend an evening, before or after a gig (never before or during) enjoying Absinthe’s wonders, which Jack took to even more than myself; once again, showing he just had a much deeper understanding of things of this world than I had ever thought humanly possible.

He’d talked it up to Mr. Walker before the visit, and so after their gig (attendance 60, but people paying attention, maybe a dozen) we got back to my place, unloaded and Jack, who could be as quiet, polite, and shy as he was out-going, gruff, and sometimes scary, asked quietly & kindly if we might try some as Peter never had. Of course, I’d never pass an opportunity to bring out my best and do a “vertical tasting” of 8 styles of my stock (Absinthe is style of medicinal liquor; think of bourbon, not a name brand) and share them with Good People.

I purposefully held back two rounds knowing I was where my headspace should be amongst two geniuses, so I could appreciate their interaction, which lead to an impromptu session of Jack and Peter trading licks and songs back and forth as well as playing together. They were so engaged, these lovers and artisans of music, that I was able to sneak away to get a PZM mic and a MiniDisc recorder. Sadly, that night’s jam session, that went well into the wee hours of the morn, produced no recording, as the MD died in that physical way they do – I even paid for a “recovery” but was refunded when it couldn’t be done.

Still, I would not trade that precious night and their playing, talking, sharing tricks and tips and showing each other licks – Jack’s deep blues knowledge and finger-picking skills against Peter’s several years of studying Flaminco guitar in Spain for several winters – I’ve had few nights like that in my life. It went on and on, and I do not recall speaking a single word. I learned more about guitar-playing that night than all the years I’ve poorly played.

So when I got an email today (Mon 7 Dec 2009) from Tom Carter saying he was really having a bad day, I wrote back, assuming it was NYC finally weighing in on him, and talking up the coincidence that I had put writing him on my “to do list”. So I was delighted when the phone rang, until he shared the bad news, which I knew long before he said it, given his tone of voice, and the email that included a lot of talk about Jack – who I was expecting to tour once his upcoming Thrill Jockey LPs were released and was excited to get to hang with again.

So only a few hours of trying not to think about it, I write this in lieu of working, because I just cannot bottle up the painful sadness of knowing I will never get to spend time with Jack again. Friends move away; get married and disappear from social life; move to other countries, etc. But death is death: the true definition of finality.

Having written this much, I find myself in tears and wanting to finish it, although I know it’s a piss-poor job of expressing just what a terrible loss it is, for myself, for his wife and friends, and for the music world, that Jack passed at only 38 years old.

What’s left to say?

Jack will never finish the last half-rack of his fave beer (no longer made) that I’d cellared for him; I’ll not again be gifted with an LP I’ve never heard of that would change my concepts about music; there will never finally be a Jack Rose show in Portland at a good club/bar with myself or someone competent doing the sound so that it didn’t piss him off… the list goes on.

The Thrill Jockey LPs were going to launch him, I have no doubt, given how hard and long he worked on the new music and what a great label it is, into the kind of semi-fame that Fahey and others of the odd-edgy-avant folk music scene had achieved, and none too soon in my opinion.

I realize his death will probably bring him that status, but I am sorry – too little, too late. Mr. Jack Rose was a fine man, a good husband, someone who’d been through the trials of life and came out of them with a passion which he poured directly, unfiltered & full-proof, into his music and art, but to me, having him crashing and stomping into my house – tired, dirty, thirsty, but feeling he was at home, only makes the loss hurt that much more.

Artists of Jack’s caliber are almost always intolerable assholes, or worse. Jack might have seemed that way on the surface, but those of us fortunate and lucky enough to get to know him will always appreciate that he broke that axiom: you can be a truly, fantastically talented artist and a regular, down-to-earth human being at the same time. I think that “blue-collar working man” vibe shows in his music if you look for it, and makes it even better when you find it.

The only thing I can say now is that when they said “Only the Good die young”, I realize now as I grow older that it means, more often than not, that “being good at something” is probably what “good” was meant to mean, not “church-going” or “alms-giving”. But two days before I wrote this – the current world of music, which frankly I believe to be in a very bad slump, has lost one of the few who was burning a bright and colorful torch that gave those who knew his work a reason to look forward to the future.

Much love, Jack. I hope your gig with Heaven’s Chorus is a good one. And if you’re headed the other way, can you book me a room? We still have so much to talk (over each other) about: so many records, so many musicians, so many, many things. That first drink is on me.

Jack used to play an old silvertone amp in the early 90′s. He was a very clean guitarist, and was really precise at playing old school electric lead lines. He had a great feel for it. Excellent, actually.

He wanted to be an archaeologist when he got to VCU but that changed pretty quickly. I talked him out of it. Looks like playing guitar was a better option.

Jack is the protagonist in two great stories, not really repeatable but quite funny. One involved the line “…have you ever been really bored while driving?” and the other ended with “I’ve read books…”

Hadn’t seen him in along time, like 15 years, but we were talking last week about booking a possible Richmond show… what would be a good venue, guarentees, etc.

just found out about this mess tonight.

From Argentina, I love the music from Jack as soloist or Jack in Pelt. Is a very, very sad notice from me. Dear Jack, whatever you are, i miss you…
Santiago

http://dcharlesspeer.blogspot.com/2009/12/some-these-days-ill-be-gone.html

I’ve only been privileged to know Jack a few years but I consider him a true close friend and looked forward so much to further touring with him this coming year here in Europe.
I was gutted when I got the news last saturday and am still finding it hard to get my head around it.
Laurie and Jack welcomed me into their home and hearts and I thank them both for that.
Michael Chapman

Jack Rose video from 2005. This is a couple of days before Arthurfest at a show in San Diego.

http://www.vimeo.com/8191426

Here is AMPLITUDE EQUALS ONE OVER FREQUENCY SQUARED tribute to Jack.
See Link Below:
http://frequencysquared.blogspot.com/2009/12/rip-jack-rose_05.html

I would tell this story but I think it’s best for nathan bowles to tell me about it but i was hilarious he ripped on sean boles for being in “some emo band” [algebra one]. pretty sure he’s still cool though. kind of crazy. i didn’t know jack until later .. we hung out at mike gangloff’s house after he and the black twigs played the cellar in blacksburg. great times but a memory from 1997 was doing laundry on south main street and seeing a flyer for a show i didn’t know about at the house i was about to move into. it happened to be the shadow ring at the old kent street house. the flyer was kind of rudimentary and said “flyer by wack age 26.” i think at this point he was in floyd. kind of crazy that it took me years later to discover pelt and of course his solo recordings. i had befriended mike in 2000 and interviewed him for the local radio station magazine which pelt had a large part in. all of it now is sort of like fokelore to some seemingly distant time in the 1990s not that was even that long ago but in terms of how information moves now it is. anyhow, i may as well tell the story now. hanging out with jack, nathan bowles, mike gangloff, and isaak howell (ie. jack rose and the black twigs) in ironto at mike’s place and listening to link wray’s mordicai jones after the gig with the twigs at the cellar which was free. not sure if anyone in the cellar in blacksburg even knew or appreciated what they were seeing that night. we were listening to it and the record ended and i was a little tipsy and i said “hey that dude kind of sounds like steven tyler man.” well i left right after that but nate said they were all rolling on the floor after that. i guess that was probably the least indie snob thing to say but hey the dude did. anyhow i guess jack thought that was great. he also was over the top when he hated something but i think a lot of times just to be who he was. he was unafraid to speak his mind and especially opinionated on things like that. anyhow rip jack. see you on the other side – greg