R.I.P. Mel Benner (1973-2012)

(Note from 8/1/12 – Yesterday I got a heartbreaking message from Elizabeth Deifell (Dryman):

"I am writing with the sad news that Mel Benner passed away. She was killed by a drunk driver outside of Philadelphia. I posted links on my FB page. She had moved back from LA to be closer with her parents and was planning on starting a MA program in June. So sad."

Mel's online obituaries including guestbook tributes are here and here.

Mel's last FB profile pic

What a tragic, senseless death. I unsuccessfully tried tracking her down in 2010 after digging up the cassette tape she gave me when she came along with me, Lem, and Derek Elliott on our New England Tour roadtrip back in '93. Now I really wish I had re-connected with her.

Mel was such a sweet, gentle soul. And what an amazing athlete. She was a track star in high school:

YOUNG MUSTANG POWERS TEAM TO 3D AT STATES (Philadelphia Inquirer - May 25, 1987) Melissa Benner may have been one of the youngest competitors in Friday and Saturday's PIAA Class AAA and AA track and field championships at Shippensburg University, but the Gwynedd-Mercy Academy freshman made her elders take notice. Benner won the Class AA 800- and 1,600-meter runs and teamed with Jennifer Budniak, Jane Heffernan and Debi McMahon to finish fourth in 4 minutes, 4.69 seconds in the 1,600-meter relay...

BIG DAY FOR GWYNEDD-MERCY'S BENNER (Philadelphia Inquirer - April 26, 1990) She has run in the Penn Relays a grand total of one time, but the event already has become Melissa Benner's personal favorite. In fact, it has become such a highlight of her outdoor track season that she is willing to curtail another of her favorite activities: eating. "It's a race I've been looking forward to all year," said Benner, the talented senior distance star from Gwynedd-Mercy Academy...

and later at UNC-CH. In fact, while in junior high, she set at least two national track records, in the 800 meter and 1500 meter runs. Her time of 2:11:28 in the junior girls’ 800 meter run remained unbroken as of 2006, and may stand to this day.

She had great taste in music. Although she’s not listed on the Fall '93 WXYC schedule, I could have sworn she was a DJ around that time.

I will always remember her mom cooking us breakfast when we dropped Mel off at her folks’ place in Philadelphia. I think she made us pancakes, and she was super warm and welcoming to our road-weary crew. It was great to get to see Mel at home like that. My heart goes out to her parents and brother and sister.

Seriously, drunk drivers need to be kept off the freaking roads. I’ve never felt as anti-DUI as I do right now. The girl who killed her was only 19. Why can’t breathalyzer ignition locks become mandatory for vehicles registered by drivers under age 21? And heavy fines instituted for parents who allow underage kids to drive vehicles without ignition locks. And the locks certainly made mandatory for anyone convicted of even one DUI. That all seems like common sense. But none of it will bring Mel back, and that’s what really sucks.)

End of a WXYC Era: Thirty Years' Worth of Posters Gone

On this beautiful late spring evening, Ellie and Neill invited me to the opening of an exhibit at the old Chapel Hill Museum on Franklin Street that featured an installation they did in conjunction with their Abbey Court Community Project.

While hanging out there and enjoying the art, some dude came in all wild-eyed, and spread the word that the following Monday, thirty years' worth of posters that had graced the walls of WXYC were going to be torn down. In contrast to WXDU's studios at Duke, which for years have looked like a dingy dump with boring, barren decor, nearly every inch of the walls, windows, doors and even ceilings within WXYC's space in the Student Union were covered with posters, stickers, photos, clippings, and other memorabilia of the station's long history.

The story was apparently that the wing of the Union where the studios had been located since the early 80s was finally being renovated, and to bring it up to fire code all the posters and artifacts had to be removed.

I went home, grabbed my camera, and drove up to campus. Somebody let me into the Union, and then the station, where I hadn't set foot in nearly fifteen years.

Possibly the last time before that I was up there was when N'Gai and myself were guests on a show John Svara was doing circa '97 or '98, which we burst in on after hearing him on the radio and figuring it would be fun to stop by and say hi. He let us pick out tracks for the rest of the night, and it was a legendary broadcast. I should have imposed on Jay to let me crash his show a few times during the dozen plus years he was on air from the early 90s until 2005, but I never wanted to disrupt his sonic art. Jay recorded almost every one of his shows on hundreds of cassette tapes, and it would be great to hear them if he ever gets around to digitizing some.

XYC was a major influence on life at the Pink House, and not just because of the number of jocks who lived there. The dining room boombox was tuned to 89.3 FM day and night for years (when Jay wasn't playing tapes of his shows). I created all the mixtapes for our early parties at the station, crossed paths with Clint (and Ian!) for the first ever time at the 70's dance in 1991, and bonded with N'Gai when he sat in on my show a few times right after he and Dana hung out with Clint and me at the house over Thanksgiving that same year. We discovered Babatunde Olatunji's Drums of Passion during one memorable show that also featured guest DJ Myron B. Pitts, and it remains my pick for XYC's coolest record in the library.

Anyway, the jocks on duty on this June '11 night were super chill.

They had no problem with me wandering around the station for the next few hours, documenting everything.

Other jocks came through to pay their own respects to the posters, including the dude who had tipped me to the situation, and some posed for pics meant to send the message that they would have to go through us in order to tear down all the artifacts! In reality, everyone knew it was the end of an era.

What was so hard to believe about that night was that everything at the station looked almost exactly like I remembered it when I was a DJ and sub circa '91-'93. Very little had changed. It made it all the more heartbreaking to realize after that weekend, it would never look that way again.

Flashback to the New England Tour '93 and a Suede/Bowie soundtrack

Now that I've got the digital audio hook-up, I'm gradually recording artifacts from my cassette collection. It was while looking for more tapes from the Pink House era earlier tonight that I happened to find the mix tape Mel Benner made for us the day we left town with Lem and Derek Elliott to drive north on the New England Tour '93.

Lem's cousin, Derek, Lem & Erik at Lem's aunt's house in Boston, Dec. '93

It wasn't really a mix, it was simply Bowie's 1973 LP Aladdin Sane on one side, and on the other, a new, self-titled debut LP by Suede, a UK group I'd never heard of. Although apparently, that's because I wasn't reading any issues of the British music press that littered the XYC studios. During '92-'93, Suede were the most-hyped English band since the Sex Pistols, and when their debut record dropped in late March '93, it was the fastest-selling UK debut since Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Welcome To The Pleasuredome in 1984.


Mel, however, was tuned in. At the time, she was living in a tiny house on one of the streets of Northside that ran west off Church Street, a little ramshackle shotgun shack. She was really excited about Suede, and thought they were the reincarnation of glam-era Bowie. So she made this tape for us to play on our roadtrip. It added some rockin' flavor to everyone else's preferred vibes (hip hop for Derek, deep house for Lem, and 70s funk for me).

I was hooked from the first song "So Young," because their debut album was a freaking classic, a neo-glam masterpiece.



It didn't hurt that it was probably also the first time I'd ever heard Aladdin Sane (except for the better known tracks "Panic in Detroit" and "The Jean Genie").



For the next seven years or so, this tape never left whatever car I was driving at the time. Even during the period I was rocking my deathtrap '84 Mazda GLC that lacked a tapedeck and I had to cart around a little boombox in the back floorwell. The Suede/Bowie tape became part of my essential driving soundtrack. I’m shocked it's still playable.


Don't know what happened to Mel Benner, because she graduated and left town the next year and I never saw her again. I can't find a Facebook or other definitive link for her, but she was a track star at UNC, and I did find mention of a Melisssa Benner in PA who was still running in charity 5K races as of 2009. So hope she's doing well.

While googling Suede to see where they are today, I found out they're back together and touring Europe right now! They've got a UK gig coming up at London's 02 Arena on December 7. Not that I'm gonna hop on a plane and go, and unfortunately, they're touring without their original lead guitarist Bernard Butler, who co-wrote all the songs on their first LP and played a huge role in shaping their sound. But surely it will be a great show, and for that reason alone, right now seems a particularly appropriate time to be looking back to the moment 17 years ago in a Northside driveway when we were preparing to embark on yet another memorable Pink House road trip and Mel first turned us all on to Suede.

"This is dedicated to all those who will contribute to the New England Tour '93, whether in the city or on the road..." – Lem, 12/21/93, 2:32 am

You might be a scenester if...

alt.music.chapel-hill, 7/13/95

From: ale@backporch.pdial.interpath.net (Alec Vance)
Newsgroups: alt.music.chapel-hill
Subject: you know you're a scenester if... (was RE: Territorial Pissings)
Date: 13 Jul 1995 21:54:40 -0000
Organization: Chapel Hill Music Lovers>

At 9.38am 7/13/95 -0400, Butman, Holly wrote:
>
>BTW, do you even know what a scenester is?

No, he probably doesn't, and please don't blame him for it. Most of us have heard the word "scenester" being bandied about here and there, sometimes as praise, sometimes as an insult, but very few would be able to answer Holly's question coherently. I myself was asked this question some months ago, and its complexity so challenged my lexicological functions that I decided I would tackle what Webster let slide by him and into the end-zone of elusive definitions. "What is a slacker?"--that was an easy one; we had Doug Coupland, Rick Linklater, and Ian Williams to write the book. But "what is a scenester?" is a question that may remain forever elusive. I for one, had never heard of one until I moved here, so I don't know if it's a local thing or a national thing. However, when it's used on alt.music.chapel-hill, it carries very specific, local connotations that an outsider might not catch at first. So here goes my attempt at narrowing the field, if not pinning down the underlying motivations and character of the beast. (This will be especially helpful if you yourself are not sure if you are a "scenester" or not, and it is causing you considerable mental anguish.)

YOU MIGHT BE A SCENESTER IF....

You are a waitress at the Flying Burrito.
You dated a waitress at the Flying Burrito.
You can identify members of Zen Frisbee by their first names.
You've ever smoked a spliff, argued to the point of complete exhaustion, or both (concurrently), with Dave Jiminez.
You cried when the Hardback closed.
You laughed maliciously when the Hardback closed.
You are a DJ at WXYC.
You keep track of who Mac McCaughan is going out with.
You've ever given local hero Mark Sloop a ride home from a party.
Two words: Camels & Olympia.
You can tell when someone is on heroin.
You know the last names of more than one person named "Ron."
You know the name of at least one owner of Local 506.
You know the difference between Cliff's Meat Market and Hank's Meat Market.
You can name three or more bands that Groves drums for.
More than one-third of your wardrobe comes from thrift shops, dumpsters, or your grandfather's attic.
You have been in Chapel Hill for at least 5 years
You have not left Chapel Hill/Durham in at least 2 years.
You are accompanied by a peculiar odor (males only).
You've ever had a crush on Frank Heath (females only).
You ignore and forget the names of people you've met 10 times until you're sure that they're cool enough to know.
You ignore and forget the names of people you've met 10 times until you're sure that you're sober enough to make a good guess.
You not only know local bartenders by name, but you can get a drink after closing hours.
You tell new acquaintances of the opposite sex that "you paint".
Most of your small talk involves local bands, cigarettes and beer.

THINGS THAT YOU MIGHT THINK MAKE YOU A SCENESTER (BUT DO NOT NECESSARILY)....

You have long hair or "beat" facial hair
You are in Pine State
You are a DJ at WXDU
You live in Durham
Refer to "the scene" incessantly, as if it were something tangible and organic.
You know the difference between the musical (as opposed to the graffiti) styles of Dada Veda and DSF Earth Corps
You know something about politics, philosophy or literature
You like Superchunk or the Archers of Loaf to the point of obsession

THINGS THAT EXCLUDE YOU FROM BEING A SCENESTER

You wear sandals.
You live in Raleigh.

Feel free to add to/correct this vital information in the public interest... maybe we could include it in the forever-forthcoming FAQ!

Self-deprecation is a poor substitute for humility.
And I'm a lousy, egotistical, self-righteous,
egg-sucking son-of-a-bitch.
-------------------------------------------------------------
alec vance ale@backporch.pdial.interpath.net carrboro, nc

Other than hearing Jay Murray sing "Plastic Disaster"...

Various: COGNITIVE MAPPING (Friction Media) (1994)

WXYC station manager Bob Boster put together COGNITIVE MAPPING to benefit the station's tower fund. Though a couple of the bands here have records out, (MINERVA STRAIN, JUNE), the cassette is mostly garden-variety home-recordings by XYC jocks. Consistently good stuff. . . my picks: PROTOBLAST (aka Nate Florin aka Asst. Manager aka housemate) doing the suspiciously Sebadoh-esque "Hardcore," DETERGENT's (aka Palmatier aka the guy who lets me use his e-mail account) twisted, "acoustic" habit, ALEX & RUGARE's (aka Graham Entwhistle and Bob) Gloria Steinem audio cut-up, "Sex and Race," and JOBY's OPINION . . . but best of all, other than hearing Jay Murray sing "Plastic Disaster," is the unlisted cut at the end; a couple guys (one sounding a lot like Palmatier) screaming in "unison" about Friction Media. A theme song.

- Stay Free! Magazine, 1994

Yaggfu Front album release party at Great Hall

Pink House circa Summer of '92

I drove back down to Chapel Hill. Got here around the end of June. First of all, the house was a mess. Looked like a fucking band of gypsies had been living here! Next, I found out there were several vacant rooms in the Pink House that needed to be filled with people, pronto, otherwise I would have been up to my eyeballs in debt from having had to pay close to nine hundred dollars in rent myself.

So that's the sort of things that have been occupying my time for the past few weeks. Mark, I have not yet gotten involved with any voter registration campaign...in fact, I haven't even been in touch with Kate Lowenstein since I've been back in town. I think I'll call her tomorrow. Caroline, you would never guess who I saw tonight...Alec Guettel! He was drinking beer with me and about twenty other National SEAC people in the Forest Theatre. He's been living in New York and working with SEAC, but this summer marks the end of his involvement for right now. Isn't that sad to think about, in a way? Seeing him brought back lots of old memories of what it was like for all of us, you, me and Mark, when we were just becoming involved with SEAC our freshman year. There's a National Council meeting going on this week, and many people are in town for it. Many of them are also sleeping in our living room downstairs, right now.

Joe Herzenberg called me on the phone today, and I ran into my friend Termain Kyles outside the TEP house this evening, and Deidre, of all people, came by this morning with my housemate Lydia to wake me up, and SEAC people like Eric Odell, Ernesto Guzman, and Todd Thomas were dropping by the house, all of whom I haven't seen in a couple months.


Ernesto & Todd, Spring '92

Last night I heard Uzoma Nwosu (you know Uzi, right?) on air doing his hip-hop/dance show on WXYC, so I called him up at the station and we're going to get together this week. Plus, on this past Tuesday night Lydia and I went to the Cradle to see Arrested Development, the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, and Me Phi Me perform. Finis Dunaway was there, among a cast of hundreds. Preston and Richard are around, working at the Varsity, haunting Franklin Street and Papagayo's. We've discovered a swimming pool that's at Northampton Terraces, just two apartment complexes behind North Street. It's the new Pink House pool...we go there to swim every day. See, these are all just some of the things that make me happy to be in Chapel Hill again.

- Letter to Caroline (& Mark Chilton) in Kenya

How the children of the 70's brought back Disco

"Disco Mania: Bee Gees And Leisure Suits Live," New York Times, 5/6/91

Campus Life: North Carolina

By KYLE YORK SPENCER

Photo: Students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have become fascinated with the look and mood of the 1970's by reviving its clothes, music and slang. Students attended a recent party at a local club where they danced to disco music and, some, wore bell-bottoms. (Duane Hall for The New York Times). Courtesy of Elizabeth Dryman Deifell.

When Dayna Baird, a senior English major at the University of North Carolina, packed her polyester bell-bottoms and sent them home, she had not yet received her invitation to the 1970's disco night at the local dance club here. But when the invitation arrived, she immediately called her parents in Dublin, Ohio, to send back the pants.

Ms. Baird is an avid disco dancer who knows the name of the Brady Bunch's singing group and who owns a leisure suit. She is not an oddity here. She is one of hundreds of students who have caught on to a 1970's craze.

Many attribute its popularity to the first annual 70's dance held in the student union on Feb. 9. About 500 students turned out to model leisure suits, show off disco steps and demonstrate their knowledge of '70's trivia. Since then, the music of K.C. and the Sunshine Band, Abba and assorted other '70's bands can often be heard at fraternity parties, local clubs' parties, and sometimes even the cafeteria.

'Can't Get Enough of It'

"I don't think it's really big," Ms. Baird said. "But the people who love it really love it."

The resurgence of clothes, music and slang from the 1970's may not be big, but local shopkeepers and disc jockeys say it is affecting their business. At Time After Time, a vintage clothing shop in Chapel Hill, bell-bottoms and acetate shirts are making a comeback, said a clerk, Kelvin Nivens.

At WXYC, the campus radio station, a disk jockey, Erik Ose, a sophomore history major from Providence, R.I., said, "When we play a 70's song, something say from the Bee Gees or Earth, Wind and Fire, the switchboards light up. People can't get enough of it.

At the Skylight Exchange, one of Chapel Hill's cafe-bookstores, 70's music blares in the background, and employees are frequently caught touching up on old dance steps.

To hear aficionados tell it, being a '70's fan is not always easy. "Sometimes I think I'm so weird," Ms. Baird said. "I don't know why I'm so into this."

Katie Milbrooks, night manager of the Skylight Exchange, said she recently sold a "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack to a customer who insisted on a bag because he didn't want to be seen carrying a disco album.

Mr. Ose suggested that the 70's music and fashion revival represents a kind of rebelliousness. "Disco was shunned for so long, it was made out to be the evil entity," he said. "Since its inception, it's never been so cool to like disco. As time passes, people will realize this."

For many fans, the 70's look and talk still is not cool, which is what makes it hot. "It's so cheesy that it's cool; it's so bad that it's great," said Stacy Philpott, a junior psychology major from Asheboro, N.C.

Polyester Clings Together

"Everyone looked so disgusting then," said Susan Hunter, whose house is full of 70's paraphernalia. The Chapel Hill resident, who graduated last spring with degrees in French comparative literature, calls the era "hideous" but "dynamite."

Mr. Philpott admitted that to avoid ridicule, most 70's fans do not flaunt their leisure suits on a daily basis. "They dress up when they get together -- but never alone," he said.

Recently, Mr. Philpott and Ms. Hunter had an opportunity to do just that when they were hosts to a Karen Carpenter theme party honoring Ms. Carpenter, the singer who died in 1983.

Some fans say that by latching on to the 70's, they are coping with the past and coming to terms with their childhood. Ms. Baird said it reminded her of elementary school, when she practiced dance steps in the basement with girlfriends.

Mr. Philpott said his fascination with the 70's represents a return to lost innocence. He said that when he was young he listened to the Village People and was unaffected by the Watergate scandal.

Ms. Hunter explains the resurgence quite simply. "We are children of the 70's," she said.

First Annual WXYC 70's Dance

The first annual 70's dance (was) held in the student union on Feb. 9. About 500 students turned out to model leisure suits, show off disco steps and demonstrate their knowledge of '70's trivia.

- "Disco Mania: Bee Gees And Leisure Suits Live," New York Times, 5/6/91