Peter Ventantonio (June 11, 1970 – May 12, 2021), known professionally as Jack Terricloth, was an American musician and guitarist, the lead singer of the

cabaret Cabaret is a form of theatrical entertainment featuring music, song, dance, recitation, or drama. The performance venue might be a pub, a casino, a hotel, a restaurant, or a nightclub with a stage for performances. The audience, often dining o ...

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

band The World/Inferno Friendship Society and guitarist and vocalist of Sticks and Stones. He died on May 12, 2021 in his Ridgewood, Queens apartment due to hypertensive cardiovascular disease. He grew up in

Bridgewater Township, New Jersey Bridgewater Township is a township in Somerset County, New Jersey, United States. The township is both a regional commercial hub for Central New Jersey (home to Bridgewater Commons and different corporate headquarters) and is a bedroom suburb ...

, the son of a businessman father and a school-principal mother; his hometown is referenced in the 1997 album ''The True Story of the Bridgewater Astral League'' by The World/Inferno Friendship Society. He attended

Bridgewater-Raritan High School Bridgewater-Raritan High School (commonly abbreviated as BRHS) is a four-year comprehensive public high school. It is the lone secondary school of the Bridgewater-Raritan Regional School District serving students in ninth through twelfth grad ...

, where he met future Sticks and Stones bassist Osamu Kawahara. During high school, he sold subscriptions to the ''

Courier News The ''Courier News'' is a daily newspaper headquartered in Somerville, New Jersey, that serves Somerset County and other areas of Central Jersey. The paper has been owned by Gannett since 1927. Notable employees *John Curley, former presid ...

''. He credited the

New Brunswick New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...

music scene with putting him on the map, but he moved to

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. As the front man and public face of World/Inferno, Terricloth advocated drinking, lying, traveling, stealing, doing drugs, keeping enemies, always looking one's best, getting in fights, befriending hobos and "walking the walk," through his lyrics, on-stage banter, and a rarely updated

advice column An advice column is a column in a question and answer format. Typically, a (usually anonymous) reader writes to the media outlet with a problem in the form of a question, and the media outlet provides an answer or response. The responses are wr ...

on the band's website. He was the author of two

chapbooks A chapbook is a small publication of up to about 40 pages, sometimes bound with a saddle stitch. In early modern Europe a chapbook was a type of printed street literature. Produced cheaply, chapbooks were commonly small, paper-covered booklet ...

, ''Cloth Dam Sorrow'' and ''Bakshish'', both of which are anthologized with additional material in ''The Collected Cloth''. His band Sticks and Stones, formed in the late '80s, reunited in November 2017 for a series of performances in Brooklyn and Asbury Park, New Jersey.Biese, Alex
"Sticks and Stones reunite for Asbury Park, Brooklyn shows"
'' Asbury Park Press'', November 2, 2017. Accessed September 4, 2019. "Ventantonio and Kawahara first met in 1988, when Kawahara movedto Bridgewater at the age of 19 and both attended Bridgewater-Raritan High School." When asked how he would like to be remembered, Terricloth replied: "Just to be remembered would be swell. Maybe remembered as 'that guy who was brave and gave me some ideas. Ventantonio died on May 12, 2021. In 2022 the Jack Terricloth Foundation was founded by his sister Lisa and fellow artist Scott Hollingsworth, with the aim to promote arts and "marginalized voices".

References

External links

Jack Terricloth's Advice Column
{{DEFAULTSORT:Terricloth, Jack 1970 births 2021 deaths American rock guitarists American rock singers Bridgewater-Raritan High School alumni Musicians from New Jersey People from Bridgewater Township, New Jersey Writers from New Jersey