The world is a bit quieter.
On Feb. 1, experimental/noise musician and Nebraska Public Radio humanities senior producer Jerry Johnston died from esophageal cancer. Johnston was a founding member of the experimental band The Mighty Vitamins. The band played sporadically around Lincoln at venues from Indigo Bridge Bookstore to the now defunct Box Awesome. They put out the record Take Out on Public Eyesore in 2006. But it was the band’s practices every Friday at Johnston’s friend and Vitamins co-founder Jay Kreimer’s house where they focused their attention.
“We get together and we play free, we play open and it’s like the whole world goes away,” Johnston told me at his Lincoln home 20 days before he died. “When we’re through, the whole world sounds different, it’s like we’ve re-tuned our senses to hear what’s there instead of to just hear what we expect.”
In a society that constantly blazes forward, Johnston was a master of slowing the world down and appreciating all of his senses. In this less than seven-minute video, he tips his hand.
As for the Vitamins, remaining members Jay Kreimer and Brad Krieger plan to continue re-tuning their senses.
Johnston was 57.
Video by Clay Masters
Additional video by Kelly Rush
Clay Masters is a public media journalist based at Iowa Public Radio.