[I know that this is a social media blog, by definition, but I think that good social media is all about passion. And when someone who's a major inspiration to me passes away, it's worth writing about.]
I made a phone call to my two old bandmates from Bicycle Rider today, and what a bummer it was. While reading Pitchfork this morning, I found out that Lance Hahn, guitarist/singer of J Church (and Cringer) had died in Austin this past Sunday after falling into a coma during a kidney dialysis session about a week ago. I knew he'd been ill and
I'd only spent five days of my life with the guy, but, man, what memorable ones they were. The first time I ever saw him was at a punk show at the Nottingham Coop in Madison back in '95 - that was my first real Madison punk show. It was a life-changing experience, because it showed me that I could do everything I tried to do, musically, in high school back in California, out there, in Wisconsin.
His band, J Church, played with Ezra Pound (who sorta morphed into Madison emo band Rainer Maria, one of my favorites). That show was what really inspired me to start a band in Madison. Although it took about two more years to get my band, Bicycle Rider, off the ground.
In the winter of '96 I was privileged to hit the road with J-Church, A Minor Forest and P.E.E. I got to travel with them to shows in Green Bay, Milwaukee and Chicago. In that van, somewhere around Sheyboygan, Lance turned me on to E.L.O. - that weekend, I must say, affected my songwriting forever. His friend Kim (maybe his girlfriend?) also tentatively offered to sign Bicycle Rider to his label, but it never worked out.
I think, by way of Lance's influence, I also got turned on to Nick Lowe, and probably a host of other songwriters. I think Bicycle Rider probably played two or three gigs with J-Church over the years, and the dates that we played with them and The Strike were among the most wonderful shows I've ever played. Being surrounded by people that inspired me, playing in cool punk clubs - a 20-year-old guy can't do anything more awesome than that. That's why I love the above photo of Lance - he looks stocky and strong and happy, just like I remember him.
You know, until today, I hadn't read over Lance's lyrics in a while. But man, over the course of those 200-300 songs, he wrote some great, beautiful stuff. And it was probably no picnic being one of the only Asian-American guys in the punk scene in the '80s, '90s and '00s, where latent racism was a lot more prevalent than what you'd expect from a bunch of "cool people" who were supposed to be abandoning the worst of society's ills to unite around music.
Little details jump out at you in the wake of somebody's passing. It's really funny - until today, I didn't even know that Lance played guitar for Beck for a short time. It goes to show you that there are sides of people that you don't even know, even when you know 20 or 30 of their songs, and have played a bunch of shows with them. Before there were social networks like Facebook and MySpace and before everybody and their mother was on the inter webs, there were guys like Lance Hahn that wrote songs that people put on mix tapes and listened to, alone in their bedrooms, and driving around aimlessly in their parents' cars. And even though everything can be downloaded in 30 seconds these days, I hope there are a helluva lot more great songwriters like Lance. My condolences to his girlfriend, close friends and family.
It's pretty eerie - MetzMash has only been in existence for about two months, and here we are, writing our second obit. Maybe it's just a sign that I'm getting older, but when two people that you know pass away at the ages of 40 and 50 within one month, it really makes you notice. 
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