Jay Munly


Jayson Thompson, who goes by the stage name Jay Munly, or Munly, is a Canadian–American singer, songwriter, and musician. He is known for his role in the development of the Denver Sound, which is music that mixes elements of country, gothic, folk and gospel in Denver, Colorado. He is a member of Slim Cessna's Auto Club, Munly and the Lupercalians, and The Denver Broncos UK. He was a founding member of Munly and the Lee Lewis Harlots, active from 2000 to 2007. He was also a member of The Road Home in 2015.

Early life

Munly was born in Quebec, Canada to Ohio natives Bruce A. Thompson and Geraldine Ann Manley, who were married on June 15, 1963. The name 'Munly' is actually derived from his mother's maiden name. Bruce, an exploration geologist, was the founder of Skull Creek Oil. He was a Freemason, amateur radio operator for 52 years, and a civil war historian. Together, they had four children: Heather, Bruce, Jayson, and Winston.
He was raised in a "stereotypical Catholic" household. He describes his childhood and community as "privileged", "affluent", and "upper-middle class".
As a child, he split his time living in both Canada and the United States. He played ice hockey as a child in Canada and the U.S. before a related injury side-lined him. His older brother took him to the Bob Johnson ice hockey school in Colorado to play. His family would also have summer retreats in Ellsworth, Ohio, outside of Youngstown.
Munly's interest in music began in childhood, stemming from boredom as he was recovering from an ice hockey injury. He also had some familial ties: his father and grandfather owned and played banjos, and his father also made a dulcimer for his mother as a gift, although she did not play it.
While recuperating from said injury, Munly taught himself how to play his father's 19th century-era banjo, which was technically off-limits to handle, although his mother knew what was going on. She eventually bought him a guitar which he taught himself to play as well. He played both instruments in the same fashion and only played his own songs.
When he was older, presumably in his 20s, he moved to Boulder, Colorado before eventually moving to Denver. In a 2009 interview, he said that he identifies more with being an American from Denver than with being a Canadian from Quebec.
Prior to becoming a musician, it has been rumored that Munly worked as a summer camp counselor and as a record store clerk. According to an interview with good friend Andrew Murphy of Smooch Records, he may have worked at "Albums on the Hill" in Boulder, Colorado, since it's where he and Munly first met and where Munly helped him get a job.
In the late 1990's, he attended Columbia University in Manhattan, New York, where he earned a Master's degree in Modern English Literature.

Solo career

Munly started out his music career in the 1990s. He had toured with The Reejers before releasing his first album. He also shared a 7-inch vinyl album with Roger Manning, though the song featured on the record is unknown.
He has worked with several musicians that are featured on his albums, such as John Ellison of The Reejers and Chris Mars of The Replacements. However, he makes a point of not listing the exact musical contributions of each member in liner notes, preferring the simplicity of the 'Modern Library book' aesthetic.
Although Munly is the primary vocalist and lyricist on each of his albums, he hesitated to call himself a "singer-songwriter":

He was signed to What Are Records? and released his debut solo album, Blurry, in 1996 through Top Notch, an imprint of W.A.R. Munly de Dar He and Galvanized Yankee were also released through Top Notch in 1997 and 1999, respectively. His fourth and final solo album, Jimmy Carter Syndrome'', was released through Smooch Records in 2002.

''Blurry''

Blurry is Munly's debut studio album. It was released through Top Notch, an imprint of What Are Records?, on February 6, 1996. It is the only album of his which incorporates elements of pop music rather than the sounds and lyrics of alternative country that he is mainly known for.
The album was originally titled "Blurry Polaroids", but Munly was forced to shorten the name by the Polaroid Corporation.
John Ellison, Rob Dread, and Craig Winzelberg performed on this album. Munly provided vocals and guitar and Ellison performed on bass. The exact contributions of Dread and Winzelberg are unknown.
The album was re-mastered by producer Bob Ferbrache at Absinthe Studios in Denver. It was given a limited-edition re-release, with new cover art and an updated track listing, through Smooch Records on June 27, 2006. Only 1,000 copies were printed due to "licensing restrictions."
Little is known about how the album was received by critics. However, there were apparently a few songs that reached popularity in Perth, Australia.
The first track, "Virgin of Manhattan", was used during a sex scene on an episode of the television series Melrose Place.
The second track, "Baptists & Barbiturates", was featured on a 1996 compilation album titled More Than Mountains: A Benefit For Colorado Conservation, released by W.A.R. Records.

''Munly de Dar He''

Munly de Dar He is his second studio album, released on November 15, 1997. It was distributed through Top Notch Records, an imprint of What Are Records?. Musically, this album features a more robust instrumental backing than his previous effort, Blurry. A variety of instruments are used: strings such as the banjo, cello, and violin, horns such as the tuba and trumpet, as well as others, such as the accordion and various forms of percussion.
Munly collaborated with musicians Nick Urata, Matthew Brown, Michael Crow, Tom Echols, and Channing Lewis to form the 'de Dar He' band. However, the exact contributions of each member are unknown. The album was recorded "in an abandoned semi-trailer" in Denver, Colorado.
Following a move from Denver, Colorado to Austin, Texas in 1997, the band appeared on the MTV sitcom "Austin Stories". Members Crow and Lewis quit shortly thereafter, leading the band to split up permanently.
The album was re-mastered by Bob Ferbrache at Absinthe Studios in Denver. It was given a limited-edition re-release through Smooch Records on July 18, 2006. Only 1,000 copies were printed due to "licensing restrictions."
Little is known about how the album was received by critics. However, in 1998, Michael Roberts of Westword rated the album as one of the best to be released by Colorado locals in 1997:

''Galvanized Yankee''

Galvanized Yankee is Munly's third studio album, released on January 5, 1999. It was distributed by Top Notch Records, an imprint of What Are Records?. This is the first album that leans into the alternative country genre for which he is most well-known. Reviewer Jeremy Salmon of AllMusic looks at the album as a "compendium of tales" - a concept album loosely held together by the theme of war. In fact, the album title "Galvanized Yankee" is a historical term that dates to the American Civil War era. Many of the songs deal with life, death, and religion and are laden with images of "desolate farmlands, of Hollywood ghost towns, of deserted battlefields, filled with corpses and the detritus of war."
The album contains two covers of traditional Appalachian folk songs, "Pretty Saro" and "Cluck Old Hen". It also contains a live version of "Virgin of Manhattan" featuring actor Patrick Stewart, and a recorded radio advertisement for "Math Made Easy", a math tutoring program for children.
The album was recorded in New York between 1998 and 1999, while Munly was attending Columbia University. Performance credits include: W.H. Auden, William Bowen, Monica Dreidemie, Dan Joeright, Joseph Lesage, M. Outland, Patrick Stewart, and Rob Wilson. The guitar, mandolin, and fiddle are the most prominent instruments on the album.
The album was re-mastered by Bob Ferbrache and re-released by Smooch Records on February 13, 2007.

''Jimmy Carter Syndrome''

Jimmy Carter Syndrome is Munly's fourth and final solo studio album, released in 2002. This was the first album to be distributed through Smooch Records.
He asserts that prizefighter Gerry Cooney was his babysitter as a child. The song "Cooney vs. Munly" on Jimmy Carter Syndrome was written as a tribute to him. In fact, the Jimmy Carter Syndrome album may have been named as such due to the way both he and former U.S. president Jimmy Carter were brought up: "We grew up similarly...he had a nanny who sort of raised him. I was in that situation, more than my parents raising me. So there are some similarities."
The song "Spill the Wine" was featured on Tyr: Myth-Culture-Tradition, Vol. 2 in 2004.

Bands

Slim Cessna's Auto Club

Munly joined Slim Cessna's Auto Club in 1998, around the same time as Lord Dwight Pentacost, after being friends with Slim Cessna for a few years. This was during the time that Munly was recording Galvanized Yankee in New York. Part of the reason he agreed to join was that he liked how the band was operated by existing members. Since then, he has been the band's primary songwriter and shares frontman/vocalist duties with Cessna. Always Say Please and Thank You is the first SCAC album that Munly appears on.
The satirical song "SCAC 101" on Cipher alludes to how Munly came to join the band.
Munly and Slim Cessna were featured in a segment of "Seven Signs: Music, Myth, and the American South", a film by JD Wilkes of Th' Legendary Shack Shakers. Munly recited the original story titled "Döder Made Me Do It" and joined Slim in performing "Children of the Lord" by Slim Cessna's Auto Club.

Munly and The Lee Lewis Harlots

'Munly and the Lee Lewis Harlots' was a six-piece gothic country band with mostly stringed instruments. According to a Munly fansite, the band was active between 2000 and 2006. However, there are concert videos on Youtube that were recorded in February 2007. They also made an appearance at Westword's Denver Music Showcase in June 2007.
Besides Munly, the original 'Lee Lewis Harlots' were: Elin Palmer, Frieda Stalheim, and Rebecca Vera. Paul Bradley, and Jeff Linsenmaier were later additions. Jay Shewman replaced Paul Bradley on bass some time in 2007. Some members have also contributed backing vocals.
In July 2006, Munly and the Lee Lewis Harlots was voted the best band in Colorado by over 100 music experts in the Denver Post Underground Music Poll.
Their only album, Munly & The Lee Lewis Harlots, has received much critical acclaim. The original album was initially released in August 2004 through Alternative Tentacles. A combined CD/DVD double-album was released in October 2004 as a joint release between Alternative Tentacles and Smooch Records. It came with additional features such as: the original album in surround sound, three additional bonus tracks, lyrics read by Munly, and photos of the band. Of the three bonus tracks, only one is a previously unreleased Harlots track: "Rufus Wainwright, I'm Coming After You". The album was re-released on vinyl in August 2013 through the label Pesanta Urfolk. It contained a booklet of lyrics and updated cover art by Benjamin A. Vierling.
They recorded a version of "Everyone Is Guilty #2" for the Smooch Records compilation album, Crossbreeding Begins At Home. It would later become an 'Auto Club' song, released on Cipher in 2008.
"Amen Corner", from their self-titled record, was featured on another Smooch Records compilation, Radio 1190: Local Shakedown, Vol. 2, and "Old Service Road" was featured on the Alternative Tentacles compilation album, Sonic Terror Surge 2007.

Munly and The Lupercalians

'Munly and the Lupercalians' is Munly's second side project, which was started around 2006–2007. The original lineup of the band included many, if not all, members of the Lee Lewis Harlots. The current lineup contains most of the current members of Slim Cessna's Auto Club: Munly, Slim Cessna, Lord Dwight Pentacost, Rebecca Vera, and Andrew Warner. On stage, each band member, except for Munly, wears a costume that identifies them as a potential member of the fictional town of 'Lupercalia.'
The goal is to produce a multi-album set tentatively titled The Kinnery Of Lupercalia, which is all about the town and its colorful residents. Its residents have been described as "families who interact with each other" and Lupercalia as an "imagined community of Legions & clans where we are not sure who is a deity and who is not."
Although an unauthorized demo album was released in 2009, the first official album by the band, Petr & the Wulf, was released in October 2010 through Alternative Tentacles. It was re-released through their own independent record label, SCAC Unincorporated, around 2015. The work is loosely based on the Peter and the Wolf composition by Sergei Prokofiev, and is said to be a prequel to the stories of Lupercalia told over a span of four albums.
The song "Grandfater" was featured on the Smooch Records compilation album Radio 1190: Local Shakedown, Vol. 3 and on Rodentagogue: The Best of Dark Roots Music Volume II, released by Devil's Ruin Music in 2010.
In September 2019, BandWagon Magazine reported that the Lupercalians were recording a new album, although most of it was actually already written in 2012, perhaps earlier. According to an interview with the Denver Post, 36 songs were written as of 2006.
In February 2020, it was announced by Westword that the new album would be titled Kinnery of Lupercalia: Undelivered Legion and would be released in the latter half of 2020, most likely through SCAC Unincorporated Records.

Denver Broncos UK

The Denver Broncos UK is an experimental folk quartet that first recorded together in 2006. The band originally formed with just Munly, Lord Dwight Pentacost, and Slim Cessna as members. The current members are: Munly, Dwight, Slim, and Rebecca Vera.
The band is now more commonly referred to as DBUK to dispel any notion that they are connected to the Denver Broncos football team or the Bronco's fanbase in the United Kingdom.
They have released two albums: Songs One Through Eight and Songs Nine Through Sixteen. A double-album titled Songs One Through Sixteen was released in November 2018 through European record label Glitterhouse Records.
They also recorded a cover of "Top Yourself" by The Raconteurs for the album Rockin' Legends Pay Tribute to Jack White, released in November 2013.

The Road Home

Munly joined "Scott Kelly and The Road Home" in 2015, a side project formed by Scott Kelly and Noah Landis of Neurosis. The band was re-named "The Road Home" after Greg Dale's departure.
He performed a small number of shows in the west and southwest parts of the United States in January and February 2015, which included California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. He contributed vocals and autoharp to live performances.
He recorded only one song with The Road Home, which was the single "The Forgiven Ghost in Me."

Other collaborations

He has also been included on a few compilation albums. One of his first songs, "tY" appeared on a compilation album of Colorado artists in 1995, titled Shmowballs, released through the record label Sh-mow.
W.A.R. Records released the album More Than Mountains: A Benefit For Colorado Conservation in September 1996, on which Munly made two appearances - one of which was "Sasquatch", a collaboration with The Winebottles.
In 2000, Smooch Records released Radio 1190: Local Shakedown, Vol. 1, which featured his live version of the poem/rhyme "The Gashlycrumb Tinies" by Edward Gorey, set to music. It was also on Crossbreeding Begins at Home, another Smooch Records compilation album, which received a limited release of 200 copies in January 2004.

Other ventures

Writing

Besides being the primary songwriter in all of his bands, he is also an accomplished author and playwright.
Munly released the book "Ten Songs With No Music" around 2001-2002 through Maude O.K. Publishing. Running 213 pages in length, it is a collection of stories based on characters featured in some of his songs. Each chapter shares a title with a song from either Munly's solo efforts or from "Always Say Please and Thank You" by Slim Cessna's Auto Club. It is currently out of print.
In a 1995 interview with Westword, Munly said that he also wrote some children's stories that had been published.
In a 2005 interview with Kaffeine Buzz, Munly said that he was in the midst of writing a second book.
In 2006, he was asked to contribute to the Copper Nickel literary magazine of the University of Colorado in Denver. His story was titled "A Re-Birth Certificate."
Munly has also written some plays for which he has won the Southern Heritage and Young North American Playwright awards. Two of them reportedly have been in production.

Filmmaking

In April 2020, Munly and Rebecca Vera directed and produced a black-and-white short film titled "Cattle, I Will Hang," the story of which the song on Jimmy Carter Syndrome is based. Munly narrates and voices all four characters in the story.

Acting

Munly went to college to pursue an acting degree for one semester before transferring to Columbia University. During that time, he had done some voice work and appeared in a commercial for a hot dog brand.
In 2012, Munly was personally contacted by Shooter Jennings to participate in his short film, The Other Life, directed by Blake Judd in Kentucky. He appears as a mortician.

Artistry

Songwriting

Munly is the chief songwriter for both his solo endeavors and side projects. It is a role that he is happy to take on by himself, believing that a band's success is dependent on playing to individual strengths rather than collaboration with members on each part of an album's creation. He also says that he is "selfish" with his written material and serious about lyrical preservation.
He expanded on his way of songwriting in a 2019 interview with Sadwave, a Russian publication:

Musical style

His music has ties to alt-country and Gothic-Americana. Common themes include religion, violence and dysfunctional relationships; often they are intertwined. His increasingly narrative songs often feature banjo and, since the recording of his fourth album, Jimmy Carter Syndrome, strings.
One topic that Munly deliberately does not write about is politics, since he "hates" music that veers into that kind of territory. However, he admits that the stories and songs that he writes can be applied to real-world events in a way that coincidentally fits.

Vocals

Technically, Munly is a baritone, but his vocal range extends from A1 to F5. Audio samples can be found on Youtube.
Early on in his solo career, he sang at a higher register than what is typically heard on his later records.
On the expanded DVDs of Munly & The Lee Lewis Harlots and The Commandments According to SCAC, Munly read the lyrics of each song as poetry, employing a wide range of voices to the characters in his songs.

Personal life

Munly has been in a long-term relationship with musician Rebecca Vera since 2004. Vera is active in Munly's solo and band projects as both a backup vocalist and musician. They live in Denver.
Following in his father's footsteps, Munly revealed that he is a Freemason of the thirty-second degree when asked about the significance of '32°' signed after his name.

Discography

Solo albums

as Munly and the Lee Lewis Harlots
as Munly and the Lupercalians
with Denver Broncos UK
with The Road Home