I saw Jay Bennett in St. Louis a couple weeks ago with Ana and Erika. He played at Off Broadway, which is on Lemp Ave. Let me tell you about the Lemp family!

The Lemp's came from Germany and were the first to start brewing lager in America. They built an empire. Their brewery spanned 10 city blocks! So they were rich and they built a mansion. The orriginal favored son of the orriginal Lemp died under mysterious circumstances in that mansion. Then the remaining family members over a period of 70 years or so shot themselves right in that mansion. So it's haunted now. It's restored into a bed and breakfast/restraunt and they have murder mystery dinner theatre. That has nothing to do with Jay Bennett.

You see Off Broadway didn't open until show time and we were way early. We wandered around and found an antique book store. It said "Open," but was locked. However, the kindly fellow inside opened up for us. I'm sure we created quite a bother for him, and no profits. He has a dog named Maxine and she's a sweet boxer. When he had had quite enough of us, he suggested that we go to the Lemp mansion. He said it was a nice restraunt, but they also have a bar that we could casually sit at. Ana had to whizz so off we went. It was just a few blocks away.

The main bathroom of the Lemp mansion has a freestanding shower enclosed in the orriginal glass with a marble tub. One of the Lemp men (snicker snicker) brought it over from Italy. It was a creepy place, alright, and easy to get lost in.

Mr. Jay Bennett and Mr. Edward Burch played a great set for us. They played all of the excellent songs from their album The Palace Part 1 and four songs that they were considering putting on The Palace Part 2. They also impersonated Uncle Toupalo, making a joke of how depressing Jay Faraar is. It was hillarious. Bennett made a couple Tweedy references. All was as it should be... until about midnight.

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By midnight they'd been playing for three hours, and keep in mind that this was a Tuesday night. Half of their audience had left, including Burch's family. Yet, Bennett was having a grand old time of it. They had played all of their publish work and a george harrison tribute-cover and a bad finger tribute-cover and dylan covers and mr. woodrow wilson guthrie covers and some random covers. It was time for tv theme songs. Burch sat this set out. Eventually Burch convinced Bennet that theme songs were not the way to go. Also the audience had dwindled to about 8 including Beetle Bob and the three of us. What song they ended on, I-I can't remember, to be honest with you.

Afterward Erika and Ana stood around for AGES. I guess they were getting up the nerve to approach the Bennett. I talked with Beetle Bob about the upcoming shows in my home town. Unfortunately I couldn't afford, nor could I find anyone to accompany me to any of the show's back home. Sad day. Anyway, Erika eventually asked Bennett how much he weighed, because he looked so much thinner than he has in the documentary (I'm trying to break your heart, the story of wilco). Note that this was an appropriate question because Bennett had asked a barmaid infront of the whole audience how much she weighed. She must have been around 90 lbs! Anyway, I eventually joined the three, and told Bennett what a great show it was, giving him good wishes for the future and all. He shook my hand. Nice soft touch (course he was about to fall asleep too). Anyway, the point is he shook ONLY my hand, no one elses. I like him alot more now, than I did before. I had built an impression of him off of the documentary, and though he is pompous and opinionated, he's also sweet with good intentions (adorable).

Read about Bennett and Burch in Chicago, January 2003

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