From: eddie@edlis.org (Ed Ricardo)
Newsgroups: rec.music.dylan
Subject: EDLIS -- Death of an agent.
Date: 24 Jul 1995 10:19:17 GMT
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Your EDLIS - Australian Affairs agent Ben Ryan of Hobart
died of heart failure in London England on Tuesday 18 April
1995.
Anyone who knew and had met Ben was informed all about this
as EDLIS learned of it, but it seems appropriate to provide
a death notice to the Internet community in general. Ben may
have met people on the net of whom we are unaware and of
course we know he had a very wide range of e-mail contacts
around the world.
My understanding is that Ben was cremated on Wednesday 4 May
1995 in a private ceremony arranged by his brother who came
over to London from New York City. A funeral mass followed
by a wake took place on Saturday 7 May 1995 in Tasmania.
Ben had attended a number of events on the March/April UK
leg of Bob Dylan's European tour, concerts at the Brixton
Academy on 30 March, and at the Manchester Apollo on 4 & 5
April, and various lunches, tapers' parties, and other get-
togethers. Ben did an interview for the BBC's Radio 4, but
it was not broadcast. He was planning to visit a number of
significant UK collections in order to hear non-circulating
tapes and socialise. Ben had been travelling the world for
some time and had just come from meeting various EDLIS
people in the USA.
Ben's interest in Bob Dylan was a serious one and his
knowledge was considerable. He planned to spend time in
Cambridge, helping with the EDLIS archives on a voluntary
basis, meeting people, visiting relatives he had in
Cambridge and looking into the possibilities of doing an
academic course here. Many of the preliminaries to this had
been set in motion when Ben did not appear as expected. My
enquiries led to unconfirmed reports of his death, which at
first of course I found hard to believe, but I contacted the
coroner for Westminster -- starting there because of Ben's
last contact address -- and it was confirmed that he was
indeed dead.
Ben Ryan was born in Devon, England on 23 September 1962. He
emigrated to Australia when he was eight years old with his
parents Eric and Anne and his two elder brothers Damien who
lives in New York now and Mathew, who is very successful at
renovating old nineteenth century houses in Tasmania, and
his younger sister Alice who also lives in Tasmania.
Ben's parents are retired and living on a few acres south of
Hobart. Eric Ryan was an acoustic architect who builds his
own stereo systems for classical music. Anne Ryan was a
chemist at the University of Tasmania.
Ben attended Taroona High School until grade 10 then went on
to Hobart Matriculation College for years 11 and 12. At the
age of seventeen he left Hobart to try his luck in Sydney
Australia which lasted a couple of months. He returned to
get a job as a printer with the Tasmanian University
Printing Department in Hobart. Part-time study for eight
years meant Ben earned his BA. At this point he gave up his
job and began his world tour.
Ben didn't like to think anyone disliked him and definitely
went out of his way to be kind to people. I first met Ben a
few years ago on the net and he was extremely helpful with a
number of EDLISian projects, some of a delicate nature, so
Ben was not a fully public agent, he does not appear in the
public agent lists, but anyone who asked an Australian
question of EDLIS will have known he was the EDLIS -
Australian Affairs agent. Ben was extremely helpful in
making Bob Dylan's work more available throughout Australia
and throughout the world. He was always worried that one
simple question to the Hobart post office could have landed
him in trouble, there were times when his trading reached
staggering proportions, he only half-jokingly said he feared
an extra postal boat which had been needed to Tasmania was
caused by him... Ben's Dylanesque activities were all
trades, at no profit to himself. Bear in mind also that
Ben's period of office coincides with the fall of Sony in
the Australian courts and the rise of Apple House and others
to produce what in any other country would have been
bootlegs but in Oz were legal, astonishingly cheap CDs which
anyone could buy anywhere. Sony has recently purchased the
Australian legal system imposing its values on Australians
and those days of Australian law which allowed the free flow
of cheap "boot" CDs in and from Australia have ended. Ben
would not have been happy to see this.
Ben enjoyed jam sessions, especially on a Friday night at
his home until the early hours of the morning. In recent
years Ben played a steel string guitar doing Dylan numbers
with some great chord changes and weird phrasing. He bought
the guitar of his dreams while in the USA.
At the EDLIS meetings Ben attended he took a strongly
anarchistic position, but bear in mind that all agents are
required to be professing anarchists. It is rather like
Turkish Albania where any Albanian with any sense adopted
Islam whatever their religious views, the anarchism of an
EDLIS agent is not a true guide to real life political
stances.
EDLIS has a private project underway which will be done in
Ben's memory and will carry his name -- The Ben Ryan
Project. Nothing more will be said publicly about this, but
it is an idea conceived as appropriate to Ben's interests
and tastes. It will become well known once it is safely
completed. ;-)
Ben and I talked at great length about a number of things,
though we covered less ground than I would have liked,
because I was expecting him to have an extended stay in
Cambridge. I think it would be appropriate if others who met
him or others who traded with him or exchanged e-mail might
like to followup-to this posting with something about what
they remember of Ben.
eddie@edlis.org (Ed Ricardo)
EDLIS - rec.music.dylan agent
--
So when you see your neighbor carryin' somethin',
Help him with his load,
And don't go mistaking Paradise,
For that home across the road.
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 1995 00:11:24 GMT
From: Joseph Cliburn (jcliburn@FLINTCREEK.WIN.NET)
Subject: Re: EDLIS -- Death of an agent.
>Your EDLIS - Australian Affairs agent Ben Ryan of Hobart
>died of heart failure in London England on Tuesday 18 April
>1995.
...
>Ben and I talked at great length about a number of things,
>though we covered less ground than I would have liked,
>because I was expecting him to have an extended stay in
>Cambridge. I think it would be appropriate if others who met
>him or others who traded with him or exchanged e-mail might
>like to followup-to this posting with something about what
>they remember of Ben.
>
I first met Ben Ryan (virtually) as a contestant in the legendary
EDLIS Who Has Which Boot Halloween Mask Memorial Guess-The-Top-Ten
Bootlegs contest. He won a prize, actually...perhaps 3rd place
which was a set of Dylan GIFs. Anyway, in an email he mentioned
that he would be touring the US beginning in January. I said "Look
me up if you have the time..." & he said he'd take me up on it.
A few days later, I got a CD s-mailed from Tasmania. I won't say what
it was, but there are many who will be able to guess.
A few weeks later I rec'd an email from Ben, firing away from a
borrowed computer somewhere in California. A week or two later
came another email. And then, on a Saturday evening in early February,
the phone rang...
It might've been a totally wasted phone call - him trying to decipher
my "Forest Gump" drawl & me trying to decipher his Down Under
accent - but the message prevailed: he & his traveling companion
were touring in a VW camper, intended to take Hwy 61 up the river
from New Orleans to Memphis & would come back down Hwy 49 late the
next week. Hwy 49 runs only a mile or so from my house.
So, on Friday, 10 Feb 1995, Ben Ryan arrived at my house...
They were living the Kerouac dream on-the-road. My initial
impression of the big guy (and unfortunately, the only one I'll
have) was "in search of rock'n'roll dharma." He was having the
time of his life & knew it.
He was full of a week spent at places like the Delta Blues Museum in
Clarksdale, West Helena, & Beale Street. A real pilgrimage. He'd bought
a Martin guitar in Memphis & had it shipped home. Sadly, he never
got to play it again...
Ben arrived in a monsoon & after granting him a little email time,
we headed on down to the casinos in Gulfport, ostensibly to get a
good late-nite buffet dinner. While Ben & I hogged out, his traveling
companion hit the blackjack tables & won back the price of the meal
plus some!
We got back to my house pretty late & ended up around 2 AM talking
completely in quotes & watching "Hard to Handle" on the VCR at fast
forward!
Next morning, I arose early & dubbed Ben a copy of Hattiesburg 5/1/76.
I hope he got to listen to it. Two pots of coffee later, we were wired
& inspired & the dharma bums vanished into the rain (which was still
pouring), headed for Mobile, Huntsville, Nashville, who knows?
I never heard from Ben again. Then about 24 April 95, Craig sent me
a very sad, very short email about Ben's death. I sat & stared blankly
at my monitor for a long time. Surely, Craig was joking! No, Craig may
be a lot of things, but a person who'd joke about the death of a mutual
friend & EDLIS agent he's not. A few emails to Tasmania filled in some
of the gaps for me & there was nothing left to do but take a long drive
in the country -- places that I'd have shown Ben if I'd only had the
time...
Ben's knowledge of things Dylan, his enthusiasm, & his kindness will be
sorely missed by those in the rmd community.
Ben Ryan was "much of a man" -- 300 pounds if an ounce -- with a
ready & sincere smile. His eyes were those of a fellow who'd taken the
title of a boot to heart. Since Ben is the only other person in the
history of mankind to ever actually operate the BDBDB except me, I
think he'd like me to end this post this way:
Don't Dream Your Life...Live Your Dream / Bob Dylan
[17 Apr 94 - 18 Apr 94] Diamonds In Your Ears DIYE 44 CD [T-382]
Joe
--
Joe Cliburn
jcliburn@flintcreek.win.net
"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness." - Ginsberg
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 1995 13:10:07 GMT
From: "Vegard B. Havdal" (vbh@IDT.UNIT.NO)
Subject: Re: EDLIS -- Death of an agent.
Thanks to Joe for a nice post about Ben.
Me I never met him in real life, but I felt I knew him anyway through
chatting on #dylan on IRC.
The first time I met him, me and a mate were pulling an all-nighter
trying to get some work done on a programming project. I ended up doing
nothing that night, because I met this wonderful guy from Hobart,
Tasmania. The mutual interest in Dylan, Stevie Ray Vaughan and rocknroll
in general kept me chatting until about 8-9 in the morning. For him it
was no problem, it was daytime in Tasmania. (When I came to school again
after very little sleep, I met him again..."Don't you EVER sleep??"
Well, we traded tapes and CD's, he's one of the most generous guys I've
traded with, and often surprised me, enough about that. My contact with
him ended when he left for the states, but he left me an email to his
mate who was to 'handle' his collection. Ben and another guy was to buy
a bus in US, and drive all the way down to Mexico and stuff. He was
really looking forward to it.
The next I heard, was that a friend's parents had met him in UK during a
rmd gathering. I thought 'uh? the guy really gets around'. So when I
asked Craig about this a while later, he said that it was indeed true,
and that he had passed...very sad.
I can't finish this without mentioning the great sense of humour the man
had...him and Craig had me really, physically laughing on IRC plenty of
times.
Date: Sun, 20 Aug 1995 19:30:44 GMT
From: bptaylor (bptaylor@LAGUNA.DEMON.CO.UK)
Subject: EDLIS - Death of an agent
I met Ben probably over a year ago now on irc. The Internet is certainly a
wonderful way to meet people who's path you would never otherwise have crossed.
Ben was in touch with a great many people via the Internet. So many that he
eventually tied up one of Hobart's few outside telephone lines long enough for
the campus authorities to take action!
Ben's world trip meant he was offline for a long while. The first I heard from
him was an email sent from Joe Cliburn's account asking if I'd buy some April
Manchester tickets for him. He had already secured tickets for Brixton with Ray
Webster. When I emailed back, Ben had already left for Mobile, Alabama.
The next I heard was a phone call towards the end of March. Ben was in London
and wanted to arrange to meet up. He had a pronounced Tazmanian accent - after
a while you tend to assume everyone on the Internet speaks with your own
accent. Ben had spoken with Craig who'd left it to us to arrange a restaurant.
Neither of us knew London well enough so we bounced that ball back into
Craig's court. After a few more brief phonecalls, this turned into a
rec.music.dylan get together at an African restaurant. And here I met Ben Ryan
in person for the first time.
I left the meal fairly early because I was keen to start queuing for the
Brixton concert. I think I was the only one who knew what Ray Webster looked
like (by stroke of luck I'd seen him the previous day) and Ben still needed his
tickets, so we left for the venue together. We hadn't had much chance to chat
at lunch because of the seating arrangements so we caught up on the tube
journey. Ben was very easy to get on with and we talked about his world trip,
where he'd been, the Grateful Dead concert he'd seen, and where he planned to
go next. He was going to use the London hotel as a base and see some of
England, before moving on to yet another country.
At the venue we got straight in the queue and started looking out for Ray. By
this time of course everyone looked like Ray to me! I suggested it might be
this one guy who kept walking up and down the queue talking to everyone (two
prominent characteristics!) so Ben approached him asking if he happened to
be Ray. He replied, "What's one of those?" and then said yes it was him. But
after Ben had introduced himself and said how pleased he was to get the tickets
before the show had begun, the man admitted he wasn't actually Ray Webster... I
was more careful after that! The real Ray eventually materialised and Ben got
his tickets.
Craig joined us in the queue. Ben spoke of his intention to go to the Vietnam
concert which was rumoured at the time. He was also tempted to visit Dublin to
see the city ... and of course the Dylan concert.
About an hour of so before the doors were due to open two BBC Radio reporters
approached the line of people asking if anyone were willing to be interviewed.
Neither Craig nor I were willing but Ben was (after some goading..). They
wanted to gather opinions on the fact that Bob Dylan refused to grant
interviews to British journalists. They seemed to be looking for comments like,
"It's disgusting, we bought all his records, he owes us" but they went away
disappointed. Ben told them Dylan had paid his dues and could do what he liked,
we should be thankful he's still touring! Craig massaged the facts a little and
told the reporters Ben had travelled all the way from Hobart just for this one
concert. They were suitably impressed. Record button pressed, "So, how far have
you come to see this show today?".... They interviewed a number of fans in the
queue but none of it was ever used for the "Medium Wave" programme.
The next day, after tube delay problems we eventually gathered together at a
Greek restaurant. Ben told us how he'd seen a rare guitar whilst in the US and
had bought it instantly. Fearing potential damage he'd shipped it back to
Hobart so it would be waiting for him when he returned. We found out Ben had a
philosophy degree and that he was thinking about doing some sort of post
graduate qualification. He said he had a relative in Cambridge he wanted to
visit because they had never met. A good opportunity to see the town, the
university and the library's philosophy material, Craig & the EDLIS archives.
He was certainly pleased to find out he'd be able to check on his Hobart email
over the Internet... I later found out Ben had arranged other trips like this
to visit other rec.music.dylan friends. So sad he never got the chance. Other
than to attend the Manchester concerts I don't think Ben left London at all.
After the restaurant we all said our goodbyes and Craig, Ben and I walked down
towards the tube. We were about to split up and go our separate ways but kept
finding things to talk about. We ended up standing on a corner chatting for
over 10 minutes before Craig finally suggested maybe we should go to a pub
instead! We found one just up the road and stayed there for a couple of hours.
We talked about Ben's trip to Mississippi, which he had clearly enjoyed, and of
course Bob Dylan. Some hilarious stories. It was probably approaching 5pm when
we finally split up.
I was in Leeds when I next heard from Ben. He'd phoned whilst I was out and
left a message to say he was in Manchester for the concert that evening. At the
Manchester show the night before I'd looked out for but hadn't see him - I had
travelled by coach and so had been unable to hang around afterwards to look.
This time though I was going by car and so could arrive early. Ben hadn't left
his hotel phone number so I arrived a few hours before the show and hunted
around the pubs near the venue. Sure enough I found Ben drinking in the pub at
the back of Labatts Apollo :-)
We both had seated tickets and so didn't have to queue. But Ben had decided to
try and exchange his ticket with a scalper for a standing one. I hadn't
considered that and decided to do the same. So we did a fair amount of walking
up and down in front of the Apollo speaking to scalpers, trying our best to
look non-commital. They seemed less rough than they had been down in London,
although I recognised one who had made the trip up North. Ben had spoken to one
earlier who said he'd be in touch nearer the showtime. The going was slow for
the scalpers and while I'd nipped off for a burger Ben had done the deal. The
scalper he'd dealt with had looked like he might have been residing on another
planet at the time. Tickets booked under the name "Ramsbottom".
More queuing and a chance to hear the soundchecking of "Seeing The Real You At
Last", discussing if that was indeed John Jackson singing, or Bob Dylan. A
passing obsessive placed his ear close to the fire door and nodded with an air
of authority, "Yep that's Jackson."
Craig and Nagid (Sp?) arrived out of the blue so they joined us in the line. We
entered the venue and Ben suggested a place to stand based on his experience
the night before.
After the show we, Ray included, retired to a pub a few hundred yards from the
venue. Some of us moved our cars but Ben preferred to walk. And there we stayed
until late. I distinctly remember laughing a great deal and really enjoying the
company. After that we said our goodbyes, for good this time. I asked Ben to
telephone before he left the country and especially if he wanted help getting
some tickets he had been thinking about. He didn't seem too keen but I tried to
convince him that he must see as many shows as possible.
That was the last time I saw and spoke with Ben Ryan. I kept meaning to
telephone him at his London hotel, I still have the business card he gave me.
But I assumed he'd be in Cambridge or Dublin so never did. And then I heard the
deeply shocking news. It's so sad that he was so young, only 33. Everything
everybody has said on rmd is so true. Such a generous personality, someone you
couldn't help but like. A very genuine person I feel. I've been very wordy but
haven't really conveyed enough. It seems Ben touched a great many people across
the world, from his home in Tazmania. I simply want to express my sorrow and
say that I certainly feel very fortunate to have known Ben Ryan of Hobart.
Ben Taylor