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Rock the 802! Remembering William Axel Ringwig
CIDER MAGAZINE
ISSUE 36
I only had the opportunity to connect with William (Bill) “Axel” Ringwig
on two occasions along the musical
path and in both instances, Axel had
reached out to this local music journalist to simply say that he “liked what I
was doing… helping to promote the
Vermont music scene.” I wish I had
been able to get to know this man better, because from what I have gathered
in researching this very article, he was
a one-of-a-kind man with a big heart
and true-blue ear for Vermont music.
Originally from Burlington, Axel graduated from Mount Mansfield High
School in Jericho, studied respiratory
therapy at Champlain College (Burlington) and Art, music and theatre at
Community College of Vermont. He
worked for Dynapower Company and
Burton Snowboards in South Burlington and of course, music was his passion and life’s work.
“I first met Bill Ringwig when he
was in college and worked as a temp
at IBM,” friend Linda Crossman stated
in an email response for this article. “At
first glance, here was this awkward
looking kid with long, frizzy hair and I
noticed some of the older folk just
looked at Bill and rolled their eyes. I,
myself, am 17 years his senior, but I
don’t make snap judgments about people. Well, as fate would have it, Bill was
assigned to work with me.
“I trained him on various production processes and tools and found a
willing and smart kid without a chip on
his shoulder. Someone who would do
anything asked of him with enthusiasm
and a teamwork mentality. I quickly
took a liking to this kid and would
sometimes get into long, deep discussions with Bill about life, people and
philosophies. We got to know each
other pretty well and would share our
personal lives as well… he would ask
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my take on personal situations or
about what he should do next. This
guy was like a little brother to me and
I can honestly say that I loved him…
he was like the little brother I never
had.
“Bill eventually left IBM and I
never saw him again, but I never forgot about him either. What really
struck me about Bill was his amazing
capacity to love and care about others and he was one of the most
beautiful souls I have ever known.
Recently, I opened the obituary page
of the Burlington Free Press and my
heart just went straight to my feet and
tears rolled down my face. Bill, you
made your mark on this world and I
always knew you would. I will never
forget Bill Axel Ringwig and it was an
honor to have known him.”
Rock The 802 is created and
designed to promote all bands, musicians, artists and genres of Vermont.
Axel originally launched his music
venture in 2012 and after an original
partnership had dissolved, relaunched with new partners, Teri
Richer and Taylor Arsenault.
WWW.CIDERMAG.COM
Joe Milliken
“
Axel and I originally met almost
two years ago at a Justice show,” Teri
Richer said in a recent Cider Mag interview. “He was a big supporter and
promoter of local music and I was
working on building a business that
catered to musicians and their needs
for promotional material. A mutual
friend had introduced us and we
spent the evening discussing our individual ventures and decided to
keep in touch… so we could help
each other out when the time arose.
“Rock the 802 was originally
started by Axel and another party in
May of 2012, and I got involved that
November. I had run into Axel at a
Pleasure Dome show and at the end
of the night, he walked my friend and
I back to our car and we started talking a little music and business. He
mentioned wanting to get a Web site
up and running, which was part of his
original vision from the previous year.
“I offered to help with the financing of the site, plus a couple additional things and when the original
partnership had dissolved, Axel and I
decided to keep moving forward with