Farewell Dashan Coram
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COMIC Sommer Browning POETRY Bohinc, Fieled, Gardner, Kangalee, Lang PRINTED MATTER R.A. Dickey SMALL PRESS Mondo Bummer’s Amy Berkowitz BOOG CITY URBAN FOLK No Mo’ No-No’s, Exit Randi Russo A COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER FROM A GROUP OF ARTISTS AND WRITERS BASED IN AND AROUND NEW YORK CITY’S EAST VILLAGE ISSUE 71 FREE Farewell Dashan Coram Dashan Coram at Bushwick’s Goodbye Blue Monday in May 2007. Deenah Vollmer photo The world lost a small visionary with the passing of BY NEIL KELLY could write a song about anything. We wrote ashan and I met during our sophomore collaboratively and competitively. If I came Dashan Coram last month. Founder of numerous bands year at The High School of Art over to his place with two new songs, he and Design. We were sitting in the would have three, plus we’d write four more (a partial list includes Huggabroomstik, Urban Barnyard, D together. bleachers, not watching whichever sport was Secret Salamander, A New Lease on Life, and Friends being played that day. He approved of my After only a couple of weekends as a band, Smashing Pumpkins “Zero” T-shirt; it didn’t we played our first show at a friend’s birthday with Benefits), label chief at Luv-A-Lot Records, producer bother him when I told him that I was a bigger party. I can’t imagine what the people at that fan of the shirt than the band. party were thinking while watching Dashan of dozens of artists, Coram left a huge impact in the Dashan was still grieving the death of his banging on pots and pans and a traffic cone, musical communities to which he belonged. mother. He cut class a lot. He and I would as I played my guitar badly and our friend hang out in the lunch Tevon mouth-bassed. Harlem. Remember how when you got off the room talking about I can’t imagine what the The magician we BY DEENAH VOLLMER opened for was pretty emember when you met Dashan on your subway lighting broke up the sky above Times music. We would skip people at that party were Square? out of school to wait on good, though. second night visiting New York City, on thinking while watching It was only a few a mid-March day in 2005, at the Lit Remember how surprised you were that line for concert tickets R New York felt not only so comfortable, but and go CD shopping Dashan banging on pots short months before Lounge on Second Avenue because you had also like the real deal. Remember how worried in The Village. and pans and a traffic cone, Dashan decided we met Dibs earlier that night somewhat randomly were ready to play because his college adviser was your high you were that New York would not feel He would work at as I played my guitar badly like the real deal, but then you met Dashan Brigade on Houston a real venue. I didn’t school friend’s guitar teacher and he told you and our friend Tevon mouth- think that there was any to go see Dibs’ band Cheese on Bread play and you thought, “Hey, maybe this is the Street almost every day real deal.” Remember and on the weekends. bassed. legitimate place that at Lit Lounge in just a would have us play, few hours. how if you hadn’t I would always stop by Remember the night ventured to Lit Lounge whenever I could. (He’d tell me which CDs to but since he booked shows for us at Acme Remember you Underground and Lion’s Den, I just went along stayed until the very end he asked you to join that night as the hail buy and then give me a couple for free.) His blew sideways and dedication to that job resulted in him getting with it. We played the open mic at Orange of the show and wound Bear and audition night at CBGB’s. Dashan up with Dashan in the Huggabroomstik and you had to hold your kicked out of Art and Design during our senior umbrella horizontally, year. But though we were at different schools, would give his all every time. He believed van that belonged to that even if there was only one person in the the drummer of The you weren’t sure you you probably wouldn’t Dashan and I just kept getting closer. have moved to New Dashan was living in his family’s old audience, that one person deserved to see an Jeffrey Lewis Band. had ever been so interesting show. Remember how you York City. apartment on West 110th Street during my Remember how first years of college. I would come down from Once, I came down from Purchase so went to Jeff and Jack’s flattered. Dashan and I could play at what he told parents’ house to drop you and Dibs emailed Purchase College almost every weekend and that late spring and stay at his place. We would party, play video me was the craziest open mic in NYC: the off a Wurlitzer keyboard and then picked Monday night Antihoot, hosted by Lach at up Betsy from a train station (you think it early summer and he mailed you a mix CD. games, eat junk food, and listen to music. Remember how your favorite song on the Music was always on, even long after we had the Sidewalk Cafe. The room was packed, was the Delancey stop) because she was but we got seats close to the front. We got a vomiting. Remember how you and Dashan CD was “The Whale Room Whale’s Big passed out. It was one of those weekends that Vacation” by Urban Barnyard and you had no Dashan and I started Huggabroomstik. late number, and our number didn�t come up were dropped off at a different train station before I left, around midnight. I was probably and rode uptown together. Remember how idea that Dashan was in the band or wrote the Starting a band was Dashan’s idea. I song. Remember, months later, when you went wasn’t very good at guitar and Dashan didn’t a little relieved; I still didn�t think we were that you asked about his friend “Diggs” and good back then. Dashan stayed at Sidewalk he said, “Who’s Diggs?” and you meant to see Urban Barnyard play without Dashan, play anything. Those facts were irrelevant to you would request that song, until one day Dashan. He convinced me that we could write that night and quickly became a regular. He Dibs. Remember you got off at 42nd Street loved being around so many other musicians because your mom, who was on a red eye you were told they couldn’t perform that song our own songs, and we started immediately. without him. We recorded a couple of songs before we who loved music the way he did. from California, had reserved a hotel room. It was around this time Dashan started Remember how Dashan stayed on the train to Remember when Dashan asked you to even settled on a band name. Please see VOLLMER page 8 Writing with Dashan was effortless. We Please see KELLY page 8 PRINTED MATTER Mets’ R.A. Dickey’s a Survivor, All Over BY ARLO QUINT that provides shelter and services to AIDS for it, and he becomes consumed by suicidal I finish getting dressed and walk Wherever I Wind Up orphans and victims of human trafficking. He’s thoughts. He makes a (suicidal) attempt to swim to school. A block into the walk, an interesting and undeniably good guy, and, across the Missouri River while his Oklahoma My Quest for Truth, Authenticity, and the my legs start getting chafed by Perfect Knuckleball in Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Redhawks teammates look on. by R.A. Dickey with Wayne Coffey Authenticity, and the Perfect Knuckleball (written His fellow Redhawks pull him from the river the wet pants. Blue Rider Press with N.Y. Daily News sports writer Wayne a changed man. He experiences time and ‘What am I doing? Why Coffey), Dickey gives a great narrative account consciousness differently after having nearly of how he came to be the person he is. His drowned. He has a new mastery of the didn’t I just change my pants? story is compelling and goes like this: knuckleball and decides to talk, for the first … Do I really care so little about R.A. Dickey was born in Nashville in 1974 time, about being raped. Talking about it myself?’ to working poor parents married at ages sets him free. In the final chapters of the book Yes, it was that bad. He was a middle school 19 and 22 because of the pregnancy. They Dickey learns to have hope and becomes a kid who cared so little about himself that he would were divorced five years later and Dickey very good major league pitcher. just piss his pants. And if you feel like watching Mark Tucker Mark photo Tucker was raised by his alcoholic mom. When Wherever I Wind Up is an inspiring story : Eli, R.A., Van, Gabriel, YouTube and crying I suggest the R.A. Dickey (l.) he was eight years old, he was repeatedly about overcoming abuse. The story is easy to 700 Club appearance in which he describes his molested by his babysitter, the daughter of describe but the book is not simple—it’s well- certainty that he was “less than human” and his one of his mother’s friends, over the course of written.