R.I.P. Lance Hahn Of J Church

jharv | October 22, 2007 10:00 am
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As we reported last year, Lance Hahn, frontman of J Church and longtime punk fixture, had been ill for some time with kidney disease. He finally succumbed to the illness this weekend at age 40.

Formed in 1992 after Hahn’s previous band Cringer had finished, J Church’s music was classic pop-punk with a tart, knowing Anglophilic streak. Their triple seven-inch My Favorite Place–J. Church were defiantly of an era when band released triple seven-inches–came with a fold-out sleeve paying homage to Brit acts ranging from Icons of Filth to Bis to Trio (who aren’t British but whatever). This probably played some part in the band getting a little mainstream press in the UK, while they were strictly Punk Planet material in the States.

But if J Church had the unmistakable stamp of a thousand Gilman St. shows, and Hahn “was near completion on a book about the history of anarchist punk bands” (his politics were often lurking in the band’s packaging and titles), J Church’s music had a confessional streak, cut with just enough irony, that had little to do with the skate parks or Ramones-cloning or crusty hardcore that obsessed most of his peers. He ran the eclectic Honey Bear Records, which put out a small but well-curated discography including the tense synth-hardcore of V.S.S.’s Nervous Circuits, a personal favorite that best reflects Hahn’s not-just-pop-punk tastes.

Bouncing from Hawaii to San Francisco over the course of his musical life–J Church was named for a San Francisco train line, in the grand tradtion of punk bands named after regional rail routes or intersections–Hahn finally settled in Austin. There he wrote, worked at a local video shop, continued to play in J Church, and tried to manage his illness. Though they left behind a warehouse full of records–a telling quote from the Austin American-Statesman: “As Hahn was quoted in 1995, ‘A lot of people write trying to keep track of all the records we put out. I can’t even remember.’ (The band was only three years old at the time.)”–J Church’s witty, heart-on-sleeve music was sadly underappreciated in their time, and continues to be.

R.I.P. Lance Hahn [Austin Music Source] J Church [MySpace]

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