Interlude: The Hits Hurt

Just a quick note: A couple of days ago, I saw a steep, sharp increase in traffic to this blog. But it wasn't general traffic: it was people, lots of them, from all over the world, searching for "Jason DiEmilio" and hitting an archived entry about Jason's band/recording project, The Azusa Plane. Jason hasn't been actively recording for a number of years (which is why this was coming up on the 1st page of Google results), and I had a Music Geek-y reaction to the traffic: There must be a new Azsua Plane record!

Instead, it turned out Jason has passed away, and people were Googling for details. Damn.

In retrospect, I should have had the Sarah Vowell Reaction (she has an essay that recounts hearing a Randy Newman song on the radio, which led her to instantly conclude that Randy must have died), but I guess it's a fitting tribute to how good his records were (and what a nice guy Jason was) that my gut said that he was back doing his thing. Hope springs eternal, even in the face of long odds.

SISOSIG? I'd already made a decision to keep my Azusa Plane records (even the one I don't listen to that much), and this makes me sure. Jason was only 2 years older than I am, and knowing that his death was hastened by medical problems that left him unable to listen to music adds an extra note of melancholy that will be hard not to hear in his music from now on.