WANTED: PARALYZED DRUMMER SEEKS FELLOW DISABLED MUSICIANS TO ROCK OUT. ANYONE WHO WOULD RATHER SIT AT HOME AND LET THEIR LIVES PASS BY NEED NOT APPLY.
Jennifer Meyers / The Citizen
Attendees of the talk “God and the Atheists” sing a hymn at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Auburn Sunday.
Attendees of the talk “God and the Atheists” sing a hymn at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Auburn Sunday.
Three years ago today, Tim Brown laid in a coma. He awakened after six weeks and spent the next six months in University Hospital in Syracuse, where he struggled to adjust to life without access to his legs.
A dirt bike accident in Weedsport had damaged Brown's T-3 vertebrae and paralyzed him below the chest. He also pierced his heart, aorta and one lung, lost his sense of smell due to a head injury, and suffered severe abrasions to his skin.
“The nurses tell me now that they never expected him to make it,” said Brown's mother, Debbie.
As he worked his way through physical rehabilitation, Brown regained use of his right arm. He could barely flinch it following the accident, but within months he could once again move it fully, though the limb had lost much of its strength.
After returning home to Auburn from his stay in the hospital, Brown looked back to the source of his livelihood prior to his accident: the drums.
He jammed with a few musicians, but Brown just wasn't feeling it again. It didn't help that they didn't know how to accommodate his disability. The practices left Brown so disillusioned that he didn't pick up his drum sticks for the next two years.
“I just said 'screw this,'” he said.
Brown had started drumming when he was 2 years old. His father, Frank, sat behind a kit with area bands like Uneasy Riders, and Brown's brother, Mike, played bass with hard rockers Mr. Slate.
“Tim never really even had a lesson, he picked right up on it,” Debbie said.
In the years prior to his accident, Brown played weekly gigs in Auburn with the classic rock group Mirage. He then moved to Chicago and collaborated with John Scherfling of Pink Floyd cover band Crazy Diamond.
“I made wicked money playing Chicago,” Brown said.
After Scherfling died in May 2004, Brown relocated to Columbus, Ohio. He was celebrating a friend's birthday party on Sept. 11, 2004 in Weedsport when, after several drinks, he climbed atop a dirt bike with the help of some fellow partiers and crashed it into a tree. Brown has stayed sober since the experience.
“I learned my lesson the hard way,” he said. “My drinking was pretty bad before the accident.”
As he continued to cope with the aftereffects of the accident earlier this year, Brown found inspiration in Bobby Mahar. A friend of Brown's father, Mahar was determined to reunite Tim with his drum kit.
“He didn't want to get out of bed, but I helped him out the best I could,” Mahar said. “And all of a sudden smiles were coming on his face.”
Mahar, a bass guitarist, had also felt a disability weaken his passion for playing. A dent in his spinal cord paralyzed his left arm for almost a year, but once it regained feeling - and with it, intense pain - Mahar sought solace in music.
“Some good musicians will sit at home and cry in their milk with problems like this,” he said. “But music, as a hobby, keeps me going.”
With Mahar guiding him along, Brown slowly rebuilt his love of the skins. With three years elapsed since his last serious practices, his endurance took a little more time to restore.
“After a month I couldn't get through three songs, but after a while I was going 10 to 12 hours straight,” he said.
Brown practiced with a steady drumming diet of Pink Floyd and other classic rock bands. Mahar challenged him to try other styles, from country to hardcore, and Brown slayed them all. Only metal, with its emphasis on double-bass kick drums, remains outside his reach.
Debbie watched her son's mood brighten after more than two years of momentary bouts of depression.
“He seemed like he had a purpose; he needs a goal and I guess you could say drumming is his goal,” she said.
Now that he is back at home in the drum seat, Brown hopes to form a band with other disabled musicians. He believes the sight of a group with a paralyzed drummer and, for instance, a blind guitarist would be an inspiration to disabled people who let their problems limit the way they live.
“I want to show other people that I was down, but I got back up, and you can too if you want to,” he said.
Staff writer David Wilcox can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 245 or david.wilcox@lee.net
Musical mates
If you are a disabled musician, please contact Tim Brown at 253-6810 or pinkfloyd51004@aol.com
A dirt bike accident in Weedsport had damaged Brown's T-3 vertebrae and paralyzed him below the chest. He also pierced his heart, aorta and one lung, lost his sense of smell due to a head injury, and suffered severe abrasions to his skin.
“The nurses tell me now that they never expected him to make it,” said Brown's mother, Debbie.
As he worked his way through physical rehabilitation, Brown regained use of his right arm. He could barely flinch it following the accident, but within months he could once again move it fully, though the limb had lost much of its strength.
After returning home to Auburn from his stay in the hospital, Brown looked back to the source of his livelihood prior to his accident: the drums.
He jammed with a few musicians, but Brown just wasn't feeling it again. It didn't help that they didn't know how to accommodate his disability. The practices left Brown so disillusioned that he didn't pick up his drum sticks for the next two years.
“I just said 'screw this,'” he said.
Brown had started drumming when he was 2 years old. His father, Frank, sat behind a kit with area bands like Uneasy Riders, and Brown's brother, Mike, played bass with hard rockers Mr. Slate.
“Tim never really even had a lesson, he picked right up on it,” Debbie said.
In the years prior to his accident, Brown played weekly gigs in Auburn with the classic rock group Mirage. He then moved to Chicago and collaborated with John Scherfling of Pink Floyd cover band Crazy Diamond.
“I made wicked money playing Chicago,” Brown said.
After Scherfling died in May 2004, Brown relocated to Columbus, Ohio. He was celebrating a friend's birthday party on Sept. 11, 2004 in Weedsport when, after several drinks, he climbed atop a dirt bike with the help of some fellow partiers and crashed it into a tree. Brown has stayed sober since the experience.
“I learned my lesson the hard way,” he said. “My drinking was pretty bad before the accident.”
As he continued to cope with the aftereffects of the accident earlier this year, Brown found inspiration in Bobby Mahar. A friend of Brown's father, Mahar was determined to reunite Tim with his drum kit.
“He didn't want to get out of bed, but I helped him out the best I could,” Mahar said. “And all of a sudden smiles were coming on his face.”
Mahar, a bass guitarist, had also felt a disability weaken his passion for playing. A dent in his spinal cord paralyzed his left arm for almost a year, but once it regained feeling - and with it, intense pain - Mahar sought solace in music.
“Some good musicians will sit at home and cry in their milk with problems like this,” he said. “But music, as a hobby, keeps me going.”
With Mahar guiding him along, Brown slowly rebuilt his love of the skins. With three years elapsed since his last serious practices, his endurance took a little more time to restore.
“After a month I couldn't get through three songs, but after a while I was going 10 to 12 hours straight,” he said.
Brown practiced with a steady drumming diet of Pink Floyd and other classic rock bands. Mahar challenged him to try other styles, from country to hardcore, and Brown slayed them all. Only metal, with its emphasis on double-bass kick drums, remains outside his reach.
Debbie watched her son's mood brighten after more than two years of momentary bouts of depression.
“He seemed like he had a purpose; he needs a goal and I guess you could say drumming is his goal,” she said.
Now that he is back at home in the drum seat, Brown hopes to form a band with other disabled musicians. He believes the sight of a group with a paralyzed drummer and, for instance, a blind guitarist would be an inspiration to disabled people who let their problems limit the way they live.
“I want to show other people that I was down, but I got back up, and you can too if you want to,” he said.
Staff writer David Wilcox can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 245 or david.wilcox@lee.net
Musical mates
If you are a disabled musician, please contact Tim Brown at 253-6810 or pinkfloyd51004@aol.com
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gramof3 wrote on Oct 8, 2007 10:55 PM: