I woke up on Friday, Nov. 29 to missed calls and text messages. Dear friends were trying to alert me before I found out on social media that W. Cullen Hart (Olivia Tremor Control, Circulatory System), “Will” to his friends, had passed away suddenly that morning from a heart attack at age 53. I thank them for that. And I thank God, or whatever higher being you believe in, that I existed at the same time and in the same town as Will, and for so long, too.
It’s difficult now to imagine a time when the Elephant 6 Collective—the loose but still fairly well-defined group of bands and artists of which the Olivia Tremor Control was ground zero—wasn’t synonymous with Athens, but a little over 30 years ago that was indeed the case. We first met at the beginning of 1992 right after he’d moved here from Ruston, LA on the street outside 140 E. Clayton St., which then housed The Downstairs Cafe. That locale was often a host of Will’s band when they were still going by their previous name of Synthetic Flying Machine.
We were the same age, but I was immediately taken with his enthusiasm, curiosity and dedication to craft. He shined with an intensity that radiated joy. He was, like all of us were, a person who had chosen Athens specifically, and our history is all the richer for it.
His life’s work has been very well documented on music albums, documentary film (The Elephant 6 Recording Co. by director C.B. Stockfleth and longtime E6 compatriot, producer Lance Bangs), and a metric ton of print media, including the deeply researched Endless Endless: A Lo-Fi History of the Elephant 6 Mystery book by author Adam Clair. The thing is, though, no amount of documentation could ever possibly catch up to him. He was a working artist in every sense, and he never stopped working. By the time something was recorded on tape, film or print, he was well ensconced in another batch of work and always moving forward, even as his multiple sclerosis, which he endured for two decades, slowly robbed him of certain physical capacities. His most recently anticipated music, two finally completed tracks for a planned third LP by the Olivia Tremor Control, was released the same morning he passed away.
I never took many photos back then, nor saved much ephemera from those days. As much as I appreciated and enjoyed the history of Athens art and music, I was never truly cognizant of history as it was happening the way so many of our peers were. I like to think that Will was, at least in some ways, similar and lived in the moment.
There came a time, by the early 2000s, that the popular press began to look away from the Elephant 6 collective as new scenes came on the radar. It’s the type of attention shift that many other artists use to usher in their own sunset. It always seemed, though, that Will barely noticed a camera was pointed his way, no matter how many times he graciously agreed to be recorded and photographed. Those times were just more moments in a lifetime of such.
I am thankful that so many recorded so much of his time and work, in part because it saves me the pain of needing to write a biography here instead of this eulogy. I don’t want to use this time to talk about scenes and history; I want to talk about my friend. And I want you to talk about him, too. To keep his name in your mouth, his art in your eyes, and his music on your stereo. So, when we speak of Will, let us speak not in terms of career but community; not in terms of legacy but of love.
The only thing left to really say here is God bless Will Hart, his wife Kelly, his lifelong friends, collaborators and collective brethren. And if we ever need direction on how to think of him, let’s use the words from Olivia Tremor Control’s “Love Athena”: “Now I find my eyes are open/And my ship is coming in… Into the streaming light of love.”
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