 Jack, Richmond 1996 I’m still processing the news about Jack – I couldn’t believe it until I heard the sound of Mike Gangloff’s barely audible voice on the phone. Jack was a character in a world of dullards, funny, loyal, loud, friendly, smartass, sometimes irascible – and he handled himself with a sureness and certainty that was the mark of someone who lived life on his own terms, whatever good or bad that meant from moment to moment. That’s something that we all aspire to do, but don’t, buckling under financial or family pressures to get going with “real life” – even if that real life isn’t right for us. He’d really found his niche in the last few years, which was good for him and Laurie and extraordinarily lucky for all of us that loved his music. The music and friendship of the whole extended Pelt/Jack/Black Twigs/Spiral Joy family means so much to me that its occupied a good deal of my free time and attention as a low-budget patron of the arts and enthusiast for the last 15 years. It’s impossible to imagine that thread continuing in the same way without Jack. Jack’s favorite band was the Doors. He claimed to know the secret of creating edible pizza at home in a regular oven. He told me that my toddler son played the keyboard like a “tiny, white Sun Ra.” He said if he needed money, he had a Cecil Taylor record that he could sell for $60. My wife made him leave his coat in the Pelt van when they visited our house because it smelled like an ashtray. He hated “new agey guitar doodling.” He would fight you physically, if necessary, over which Grateful Dead albums were good and which were not. He did not like iPods. He reveled in occasionally reminding me that the first time we ever met was at a house show in Purcellville, VA in 1993, where one of the Rake crew suggested by way of insult that his band sounded “like the Black Crowes.” I don’t remember that at all, but that was the show where I encountered our drummer slumped in a chair wearing an orange wig and a set of mechanics coveralls, and was immediately jumped upon by a girl who tried to shove a giant chewed up wad of candy into my mouth, so I guess it was true. It doesn’t surprise me that tributes are pouring in from all over, considering how much Jack had been out there playing in recent years, traveling anywhere that would have him. I can only imagine how many places around the US and Europe he trounced with his force of personality – he was completely the opposite of the gentle giant cosmic-shaman-beardo that you might imagine from someone with his appearance who does extended solo guitar ragas.  Jack & Ian, 2004 Jack was one of a handful of people I’ve ever saw that can take an instrument and literally go beyond – there’s lots of people out there who are merely good or great, but when he really felt it and channeled it, there was something divine and transcendent in his touch. No tricks, no electric effects, just the sensation of making that perfect thing that lifted you out of this world. Jack became (underground) famous for his solo acoustic playing, but he wasn’t a savant that emerged fully formed, he worked at it with complete determination, not taking up acoustic seriously until his late 20′s. In 2001, when we were working on editing and mixing tracks for Pelt’s “Ayahuasca,” Jack sent an email to the Pelt team that declared that there would be no acoustic tracks in the package, because “I suck, those songs suck, and I’m going to concentrate on playing the bowed electric 12 string.” There was no convincing him otherwise – he got very angry at the suggestion that he was being too tough on his own playing. He was totally right, of course. When new tapes started to arrive a few months later, he’d cracked it, had a breakthrough. Even then, it was hard to imagine that someone who had taken up the acoustic guitar a couple of years earlier would make something like “Black Pearls” or “Yaman Blues” from an instrument that in most people’s hands just goes plink plink plink. Jack and Laurie’s wedding, a perfect day outside with family and friends. Officiated by Ian Nagoski, armed with a certification from some “Church of the Internets” and cleared for legality at the last minute via a fax to the county.  OASTEM! Vibe Orchestra, Richmond 1996 Early Pelt – different instruments, different sounds each time. Asking me for money at a show because they’d spent all their tour earnings on country blues records (which they had carried into the venue in two large crates for safe keeping). Club Soda with Un. “The Cuckoo” at Phantasmagoria. Three guitar jamdowns in Richmond, Philly. Immense, endless sounds at MOCA DC with a packed house (and cake). Playing the cavernous 930 Club before Sonic Youth in near darkness with a deafening set that sounded like WHHHHHAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMNNNNNGGGGGGGGGZZZZZZZZ. Later Pelt – Upstairs at Funks in Baltimore – the best, for me – “Pearls from the River.” Jack was very proud of “Untitled” because it was completely new – no acoustic elegies, no electric racket – something else weird and uncompromising. “Happy to being playing that music right now,” he said. When Jack briefly merged his extended solo approach with the band, it was bliss, but short lived, too much going on. It came back for a bit in 2006, but that was the end of a chapter that sadly won’t be continued.  Jack, Glenn, Mike, Fredericksburg, 2003 I don’t think Jack would want anyone to be sad. Love to Laurie, Rose & Sutherland families, Mike, Amy, Pat, Sarah, Mikel, Nate, Isak, Glenn, Ian, & all other friends everywhere. Bill/VHF Jack Rose – Now That I’m a Man Full Grown April 22 2004 Washington DC Pelt – Road to Catawba March 8 2003 Baltimore  Jack and Pat |