Lance Hahn never paid to play

So, yeah, I’m always the last to know it seems. I heard from about the last person I would expect to hear from that Lance Hahn had died. That news disturbed me and colored these last few day more than I would have thought possible. I only knew Lance a little bit, but liked him an awful lot. About 13 years back when we were both shitworkers at MaximumRockNRoll, he was one of the few people I’d talk to a bunch around the MRR house. I guess most people knew Lance just through his music. He played two of the most memorable shows I ever saw. I caught Cringer at ABC No Rio with Citizen Fish (I think it was Cringer’s last tour) I was just blown away by the whole thing. They had changed a lot since that first awesomely sing-along-to-able (if a little goofy) 7″. It’s a show that people still talk about. There may have been many other J Church shows I was at, but the one at UC Berkeley, In some glorified hallway, called (I think, just) The Golden Bear, really stood out. A great night. In the years since everything has drifted to places none of us would have guessed. It seemed like every time I heard some news about Lance it was bad. (House burning down… things like that) He always seemed to be upbeat and just the epitome of the non-defeatist punk spirit that few of us can ever say we keep going like that.

There’s a memorial gathering for Lance tonight in Austin, more info on his site. His MySpace page is still weirdly out there also. Say hi.