I Like Music, Sometimes.: You can never go home again- Or can you? Death and the Dead Hearts 2025 reunion.

My dad in December 1969

I moved from Buffalo, NY to California a little over a decade ago and up until September 2023, I had only been back to visit on one occasion: to celebrate my mother’s 65th birthday and to travel to Philly for the Alone in a Crowd reunion. A text message in early August 2023 from my mother, explaining that my father had been suffering from a cold that he couldn’t shake, and had gone to the doctor to find out he had stage 4 pancreatic cancer that had metastasized. His “cold” was, in fact, legions throughout his lungs that were hindering his breathing. It was a devastating diagnosis. A death sentence. My kids and I were on a plane to NY a few weeks later. It was a nice visit, but I avoided dealing with it, filling my time with visiting friends and taking the kids on site seeing outings to Niagara Falls and the like. But aside from massive coughing fits, my father looked, talked and acted like he always had. That was soon to change.

My dad jumping in the early 70's

By the holidays, he had been in and out of the hospital several times, with an extended stay into the new year. He was doing Chemo, but the doctors said that removal of any tumors was not viable. He was sent home in January, and I got seriously freaked out talking to him via Facetime, he looked like death warmed over and could barely get more than two sentences out, gasping for breath. I was on a plane again a week later.

Right before I left for the airport

This visit was different, I spent nearly every moment with my father, talking and watching movies in his living room, where he expressed his disappointment that July 2023 was the last gig he’d ever play with his band; an outdoor show that got rained out during the initial set of songs, he also encouraged me to go jam with my old band Dead Hearts and let me borrow his Les Paul to do so. On a snowy Sunday Dead Hearts got together in a practice space and ripped through a set of songs for fun. It was a light moment in a very heavy week. A few days later I drove my father to his chemo appointment, which after checking his vitals, was cancelled in office- his system couldn’t handle it. I was flying out that night and in the car he said “Let’s go get coffee and donuts” and that’s exactly what we did. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was the last thing we’d ever do together, he passed away the following month. Terrible. A waste. A tragedy. A death he did not deserve.

DH Jam 2024

I’ve never been good with death, or caskets or funerals. I suspect that few are, except maybe those who have accepted their impending embrace and welcome finality. I don’t believe in a higher power or an afterlife and the thought of not existing fucking scares me enough to not want to deal with it around me, but not enough to stop drinking coffee or get on a treadmill. My father left me the Les Paul he’d let me borrow. What do I do with it? I’m honored to have it, but it’s also a reminder of the man I knew, the father who died, the mortality which no one can escape. Or maybe it’s just a guitar, whose purpose is to be played and not be silent like the grave. That being said, even though I play it often, I’m too reserved, too careful with it in my hands, like I’m holding a museum piece that will surely crumble with too much pressure, but know that I’m still working through it, I’ll get there. Objects are made for use and instruments even more so than most, I’ll get there, I promise.

My father died in March of 2024 and even though I spoke at his memorial service, I wanted to honor his spirit, in some way, further. He had inspired me to play guitar when I was a kid, long before the bark and bite of James Hetfield had infected my being. He was so freaking cool, in the 70’s he had a band called Adamm that wore make up ala Kiss that he was so embarrassed of, but I thought fucking ruled. He sat in the living room noodling on his Les Paul the entire time I was growing up and gigged on the weekend. There’s nothing cooler than having a working-class rock and roll dad. So, in June 2025, I sent a text to the Dead Hearts guys that I would be in town for around 10 days the week of Thanksgiving and floated the idea of doing a reunion gig. It came together quickly and sold out 3 days after tickets went on sale in September.

Adamm in the late 70's

Soon enough November 29th, 2025, was upon us and my own kids got to see their cool working-class rock and roll dad play guitar on stage for the first time in 13 years. My oldest was a year old when Dead Hearts last reunion had taken place and my other daughter and son were not yet born. The show exceeded expectations. I don’t know why we got the love from the crowd we did, and it’s still a lot to process weeks later, but it was great. I wanted to, but I was so afraid to bring my dad’s Les Paul, I’m just not there yet, I don't think, maybe someday soon, I promise. After all, instruments are made to be played, to scream out the melody of life, and that guitar was my dad's song, my dad's life, as much as it is the world's.