Who Is Ben LaMar Gay?

Is knowing an artist
a prerequisite
for enjoyment?

Our World—perpetually bogged down in transactional consumerist visions of what an artist is or should be—sends mixed signals on this one.

You’ve heard the story a hundred times: voracious, crate digging reissue label honcho ‘rescues’ a self released, nearly information-less psychedelic nug from the thrift bins and transforms it into a touchstone of the genre via a lovingly constructed re-release. Crowd goes wild, they love it in the streets. Historical record updated. Canon revised. ‘Would-be’ into ‘is’. A brilliant and forward thinking record becomes recognized as such on its own terms and purely based on the vibrations in the grooves. Meanwhile, The Grand Marketing Gods rejoice, their dream realized: the mystery and allure of not knowing has become the pivot point, and The Tale of Not Knowing is retold time and time again until the music is inseparable from the story. For The Marketing Gods this is the ultimate switcheroo. A worm-has-turned, coup d’état yacht whose wake is pure down-low-too-slow ecstasy. It’s time to cash the check and option the movie rights.

But what about the actual mysteries of our time? It seems easy to believe in some mythical old cowboy strolling into a sepia-toned studio with one mic at the center of a small room because that is some top-tier make believe kinda shit that just doesn’t exist anymore (if it ever really did). But, again, what about those people and those stories living in parallel with us as we go about our very real day? How do we approach and discuss them? Even The Grand Marketing Gods seem to be at a loss for how to classify and sell them. We can’t believe in and simultaneously reject The Tale of Not Knowing, so we have to wrap our beautiful little heads around the truth that these people and these stories live among us.

Ben LaMar Gay is one of them. He is a musician, composer, songwriter, and singer, and his story seems to be, from the point of view of anyone who doesn’t know him personally, accessible only through the 2018 compilation Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun and 2021’s Open Arms To Open Us. Both of these platters say enough to keep us thinking on BLG for quite a while, but they have come into our lives without the barrage of behind the scenes shots we’ve become so accustomed to. Which raises another question:

How much access does the artist owe us? Let’s be real: the answer is none.

Ben doesn’t use social media. Honestly, who gives a shit? Yes, there is absolutely power in the kind of connection and organization humans are capable of by utilizing it intelligently, but is that what we are using it for? (no shade—do your thing)

We can’t act like we want a Mystery—The Tale of Not Knowing—and somehow make it jibe with also wanting our Mystery to flood us with a selfies-only IG feed. Was Frédéric Chopin a good hang? Probably not, but I’ve never even wondered about it. In an alternate dimension, would I look at a picture of what Alice Coltrane had for breakfast? Absolutely, but I doubt she would ever share that particular snap.

There are artists of every discipline scattered throughout the world whose work we will never encounter. Some may never share it publicly. Hard truth. So when a singular talent (that’s a phrase I’ve heard music journalists use) like Ben LaMar Gay decides to hand their music over to us it’s a cause for celebration. Downtown Castles guides us through years of sprawling composition. If the hype-sticker lore is to be believed (“compiled from 7 albums he made over the last 7 years but never made the effort to actually release”) we’ve gotta wonder: how many people were listening then? Are they listening now?

The answer is yes.

More ears are opening now than ever before, and not just to Ben’s music. There is a chaotic, joyous mass of disparate ideas swirling in Our World and, as in any time, the best art is reflecting it. Open Arms To Open Us is the cleanest mirror in the showroom, and all you’ve gotta do is look. The breadth of the thing is stunning. Sweet love songs next to Liberation Music Orchestra-style horn exercises. Rhythms and rhythms and rhythms. Pure joy, a call to contribute, and the loving push we all need to do so.

“Danglin right above inner space, our courage.”

In the record’s closer, “We Gon Win”, BLG repeats the title lyric over some serious beats. Let’s call it a mantra—It doesn’t feel like a threat; those drums don’t sound like war drums, and that’s because the people who are actually listening to Ben LaMar Gay now are the people who are going to win with him. To us, that lyric is an affirmation and those drums are for the party.