One of the best parts of working in live music is that every day you get to work with people who deeply care about what they’re doing. As obvious as it might sound, this is something pretty rare in the realm of adulthood and day jobs. Regardless of the preferred genre, we’re all obsessed with music and the part it plays in our life, and that’s an awesome thing to be surrounded by.
Mike V has been a friend of the venue for years now, so we couldn’t have been more excited when we found out that his band The Everymen would be playing here on July 1st along with Detroit proto-punk legends Death. When we asked him how this show came to be and what Death meant to him, he shared a wonderful and touching story that’s a must-read for any music fan:
One of the last times I ever hung out with my mother wherein she wasn’t confined to a sickbed battling an ever-growing cancer was when she and I were aimlessly cruising around Greenwich Village in her car enjoying a beautiful lower Manhattan spring day… you know the kind. I was flipping through a stable of ever-trustworthy radio stations when we came across a live set by Detroit’s Death. I told her their now cult legend of how three young brothers made a record that was years ahead of its time and how they should have been the face of first wave punk rock. They should have changed music. They should have been legends. But due to morals, honor or however you want to look at it, the band never had the impact that they should have.
She thought their music was wonderful and their story even more so. She instructed me to point the car toward Other Music where I would buy her the Death album, …For The Whole World To See. She added it to her collection of what she called “chemo albums.” They were albums that made her smile. They were albums that made her forget that she was fighting for her life while she was sitting in her chair doing just that. Shortly thereafter she was gone. But driving around NYC, listening to Death is one of the last and most beautiful memories I’ll ever have of my mama.
Fast forward to SXSW 2013, one year to the day after she died. I was as can be expected wholly depressed, being reminded all day that it’d had been a year since I’d spoken to my mother, my lifelong best friend and beacon of goodness. And just as we began to set up our gear who walks into the room just as we’re about to play but the family of Death. It was a show in a record store and the band seemed like they were there to browse the stacks. “Hurry, hurry!!!!” I implored my bandmates. “We have to play while these guys are here.” We hurriedly finished setting up our gear and ripped through as enthusiastic set as we may have ever played. After our set, Death was still around, enjoying our brand of Jersey Shore rock and roll. Now I don’t know what I believe in but I’ll be damned if my mama wasn’t there dancing with us that day.
Death performs with The Everymen live at LPR on July 1.
posted by Zan