I’m asking for your help again, but this time it isn’t for a school, a daycare center or a library. It’s for my friend–a dear friend in Ohio, Brian. Brian was recently diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease). We went to high school and college together and he was the lead singer in the first band I was in (and the second … and the third).
[For the purposes of this story, I’m only counting a “band” as a musical group that actually performed in front of an audience. No offense to the countless folks that I’ve visited in your homes to plug in an amp and blunder our way through Smells Like Teen Spirit and a half dozen Zeppelin riffs. Also, if any of the details below aren’t quite right, it could have something to do with the fact that this tale starts out over 20 years ago, and it’s all from my biased point of view.]
The truth is, Brian (along with our friend Matt) is directly and indirectly involved with many of the musical projects of my past. Of course, Brian and Matt were part of the regular crew in the high school marching band (with our other friends Tom, Paul, Aaron, Steve, Mark, and so on, and so forth). And like lots of teenagers in our area at the time, we were inspired to start rock bands by what we were hearing from Cleveland’s 107.9 (“The END”) and the videos from MTV’s 120 Minutes. So, we did. And ask any musician, playing music with somebody is a good way to forge a friendship. Or maybe we would have been friends anyway and it just turned out that we liked to play music together. Either way, we were teenagers, we were friends, and we started a band (or three).
The first band was called Crosstown Traffic (yes, after the Hendrix song). You see, the guitar player in that first band, Jeremy, was crazy for Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan. And rightly so – he could play a lot of that stuff even when he was 14 years old. I wanted to play guitar in the band, too, but bassists were hard to come by. So I borrowed a bass for a while and became a bassist. Still in search of a drummer, we played our first show on my front porch for my older brother’s graduation party. The adults were more impressed than the kids, because they actually knew the songs. A few weeks later, Matt asked me if I wanted to come to his house with Jeremy to jam. Finally, a drummer! Later that summer, after marching band had started up again, I was at Matt’s house after marching practice, and Brian was there, too. He said he should be the singer in our band. I’m not sure if either Matt or I were convinced, but we went along with it. Lo and behold, in the span of a few months, Crosstown Traffic went from two dudes on a front porch to a real sounding band.
After some time and a handful of real gigs, Crosstown Traffic found itself at an impasse. Everybody wanted to play newer music (like Pearl Jam and Nirvana … or at least some Van Halen or Pink Floyd) except for Jeremy. Brian, Matt and I soldiered on without Jeremy. When Bob, the quirky little guy from the other end of my street found out, he applied … to be the bassist! This was especially good news for me; I could finally put all those Pearl Jam riffs I had been learning on the guitar to use. I think it was great for Bob, too–he wanted to be in a band more than just about anybody I had ever met.
We named the new formation Flower Punks (yes, after the old Mothers song) and started playing as much as possible at Colonial Lanes in Canfield (they didn’t have liquor, so it was one of the only places for all us under-agers to go on a Friday night). And we were good! We couldn’t pull off a lot of the Stevie Ray Vaughan songs we had been playing before, but the kids at Colonial Lanes really seemed to dig us – even our original songs. We also figured out a promotion scheme: Brian, Matt and I would go there (usually with my older brother, Dale, driving us) when other bands were performing and ask them if we could play a song or two on their break. Even without Bob and with Brian filling in on bass, we could pull off a handful of cover songs (stuff from Weezer’s first album comes to mind) over the span of about 10 minutes. Not that we wanted to show them up (though I know we kinda’ did), we were able to get some of those bands’ friends interested to come see us the next time we were playing there. It worked.
The third band came about when Bob got grounded for the umpteenth time since the formation of Flower Punks. (It was very common that he and his mother would not see eye to eye, but she would always seem to win.) He had already missed our recording sessions some months prior due to a punishment (thanks to a multi-track recorder, I could fill in for him). However, this last grounding not only prohibited him from leaving his house, but rendered his bass guitar contraband. Apparently, he not only would have had to sneak out of his house, but would have to break his bass out of a locked closet in order to remain a working musician.
We had to move on, though we didn’t have to look further than my own house for our next bass player. My brother, Dale, was always hanging out with us anyway, and he was as good as any of the rest of us at playing the bass. The spot was his for the taking. We named the new band “Trace” because one word names for bands were popular at the time, and that was the best we could come up with. We played some more shows, recorded some more songs, and had more fun, but like most bands rooted in high school, it eventually just kinda’ fizzled. Dale and Brian had already graduated and started at Youngstown State, and Matt and I were about to do the same.
Throughout those high school years, Brian was a regular guest at our house which meant he was a regular guest performer. All the music gear was set up in the basement, and countless audio cassettes have been filled with whatever nonsense was going on at the time. The music usually wasn’t anything to write home about, but you can count on Brian to be funny. His subject matter was most often the people we knew, and he would roast them in song. If you weren’t in the room at the time, you were fair game. There were many about friends, friends’ girlfriends, and the respective family members of all the guys in the current band. A particular song (more of a rock opera, really) was recorded about me while I was away at a teen church weekend. It had multiple characters, all of whom seemed to end up in “catholic hell.” (If it ever surfaces, I’ll put it online for the world to share a laugh.)
As our high school days came to a close, I think we all actually got a lot better at performing music. Brian, Matt and Bob formed another band, Plunge, with a friend of Bob’s named Joel. And it was at an early Plunge show that I was introduced to my subsequent band, Raul, that I played with for about six years.
In the years that followed, everybody more-or-less settled into regular, grown-up lives: jobs, marriages, houses, some with kids … the usual. Dale and I both made our way to Arizona. Matt and Brian ended up living in the same neighborhood in our hometown. And sometimes, the not-so-usual happens.
The story above is merely how my friend, Brian, relates to me, as I got to know and befriend him … and just a glimpse of why he is important to me. The story below is from a website set up to get donations to help Brian and his family and tells how he relates to the world right now, how he has been important to his community and how your contribution can be so important to him.
On August 12th 2015, Brian Newhard was diagnosed with an AGGRESSIVE form of ALS (Lou Gehrigs Disease), a terminal illness. Brian is a loving father of three beautiful kids ranging in age from 6 to 11: Mitchell, Carter, and Olivia. He is also a husband to his loving wife Jenny.
Brian is a full time police officer. Brian and his family live and work in the Mahoning Valley. He is a hard worker, often times working two other jobs to support his family. This diagnosis and the subsequent debilitating symptoms have prevented this hard-working man from working at all. In fact, he has trouble walking, speaking, eating, and many other basic functions that we sometimes take for granted.
Brian has always helped others in his job, his personal life, and whenever anyone needs him. Unfortunately at this point, Brian desperately needs your help. His family is absolutely destitute without his income.
Please find it in your heart to donate to Brian so that his family may have the basics in life: shelter, food, and clothing.
Brian needs help. And if his friends (and my friends, and your friends) give a little help, he’ll get by because his wife and kids will get by. The truth is, we ALL get by with the help of our friends … just ask the guys in the band.
To donate online, go to http://www.gofundme.com/newhardalsfund and for more information about the trust that has been set up for his family, go to: http://newhardalsfund.org
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