After I posted this the first time, I am having so many memories and thoughts. I have personally had so many calls and e-mails from friends, fans and musicians. I also maintain the band website and generic mail accounts, I have been forwarding the e-mails we have been getting to the rest of the band.

We are bringing one of Jay’s basses to the wake to put with our flowers. We talked about it as a band today, and we decided if it were us, we would want a piece of our lives there as well that people would remember.

Jay in no way seemed to me as if he was having trouble or distressed in any way. He was the same as all of us, trying to do stuff to make money to pay bills — basically he was living life like all of us. Sometimes we have no money to pay bills, to do something fun, whatever. It’s life and we all deal with it and live with it.

I’m not the only one who can not understand why he would take his own life. It doesn’t make sense. So many people have said that they could never imagine Jay doing that. And some of these people have only met or talked to Jay very few times.
We have used the band site and I use my site only for positive stuff, I never thought I would be sitting here writing stuff like this.

Today when I was doing the picture of Jay for the THERMO site, it was some of the deepest sadness I have ever felt. When we wrote the statement as a band and proofread it over and over I could only cry. I am trying not to. We are human, we have feelings and I am not afraid to show — I am sad, confused, hurt and even broken hearted over this. And I am sharing it with you.

I know the music and the shows we played as a band will live on in memory and spirit. This was part of Jay. Music is a big part of all our lives, even if we don’t know that. It really doesn’t matter if you like it or not, it was/is an artistic and creative moment in time.

Peace,
-drew

The rest of THERMOclinE and myself are devastated by the loss of our friend and bandmate, Jason Young.

Please see the THERMOclinE site to share our message in memory of a dear friend, to all who met him.

I remember the first time I met Jay, I was playing with Artificial Joy Club, and from the first time we met, I could see and feel his passion and desire to play music, but even greater than that he had a passion for life.

Jason was a big part of THERMOclinE, he did look after a lot of the business stuff, he loved calling people, trying to get stuff happening for the band. When it came to the business part of music for the band, Jay had a big part in it.

He loved to talk, he would strike up a conversation with anybody. We would be playing a gig somewhere, and guaranteed you would see Jay always talking to someone.
I also remember many of the very long telephone conversations we would have. He could talk for hours about his thoughts, ideas and hopes for the band and what we could and should do. He was also very direct when there was something we didn’t do and made it a point to be sure we did it the next time.

We had many very exciting times together as a band, we had our share of good shows but we also did have the bad ones. We always kicked ass no matter what. Nothing was going to get in our way.

I admired the perfectionist qualities in Jay, he worked so hard at everything he did.

He would always come up with cool bass parts for the songs, and I can remember rehearsals where I would be telling him to lock in more with me. Telling him to listen to my kick drum or my hi-hats more so we could groove, just music stuff — the bass player/drummer bond.

I will miss him a lot, he was a big part of my music life since April 1998 when I first started playing with him, Aaron and Graham. He definitely made things interesting.

I am happy he was part of my life, and we shared many good times together playing music. I could always count on Jay to come over to my drums when we were playing and spin my cymbals. It’s one of those things that I don’t think anyone else ever noticed, but it did always make us smile.

There is so much I could say and write about him. I will remember him fondly.

We had just had a great weekend of gigs. The American Red Cross benefit in Ottawa, which he had a hand in organizing, and the NOTA music conference in Barrie, ON, we all agreed that the band played great and the vibe was amazing. More so on Saturday night, I thought it was one of the best performances the band has ever done. It was only our third show with our new singer Steve.

I just want to say “Thanks for rockin'” Jay, it was a privilege and an honour to have shared the stage, studio and just hanging out.

-drew