Lance Hahn

It was the summer of 1997. I was riding somewhere in the sweltering heat with Luke Hall. He is playing some really catchy and fun pop on the cars tape deck. In the next few minutes I would learn that this band was known as J Church, or as he most likely put it, "THE ALL MIGHTY MOTHER FUCKING J CHURCH...BITCH!" The album was, The Dramatization of Alienation. This album became a main stay in my record collect for the next three to four years. It was spun so often that i feared it would break in half. It lead to shopping at record stores while traveling just to see what J Church records existed in that town that didn't exist in mine.

To call J Church prolific would be understatement at best and an out and out lie at it's worse. This band has a discography so complex I question if even they knew its full contents. There are maybe two other bands who I own more releases by then J Church, and I still do not think that I grasp what the band was all about. The songs run the gambit in style and sound, and I never really knew what to expect from one release to the next.

Over the weekend the founding member of the band (Lance Hahn) succumbed to illness. I was aware that he was sick. I had just received the newest J Church release (as well as a benefit CD for Lance) in the mail right before I left town. I never even entertained the idea that anything bad could happen. I had already moved on to thinking about what the next J Church release would be. Now I am forced to figure out what it will be like knowing there won't be anymore ultra obscure J Church records for me to stumble upon while record shopping. I am not a big fan of this new reality and truly wish things could go back to how they were before.