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is there a GoFundMe in your future?
This story is difficult for me to write.
Putting on benefit concerts to help musicians struggling with health care costs has been going on as long there have been musicians. It’s natural for any community to want to give back to its own. Sometimes that community is not very large and it's spread out over vast distances. A benefit concert may rally local support, but today you’re more likely to see a GoFundMe campaign.
In the couple of years I’ve been writing on Substack, I’ve come across two of these campaigns that I’ve been meaning to highlight here. Now a new one has come up, and it’s hit way closer to home. So here we go.
It doesn’t matter how “famous” you might be, almost no one is immune to the devastating financial burden of health costs, especially later in life. During the pandemic, one of my favorite live streams was put on weekly by SFJazz. It was “live” in that they would interview the artist live before and after they streamed a recent past performance. The quality of the streams was excellent and it was always nice to “meet” the artist.
One of these artists was Wayne Shorter. I’m sure most of you know that Wayne sadly passed away in March of this year. While watching that live stream in 2020, I was surprised to learn that it was effectively a benefit to help Wayne with medical costs. Wayne Shorter. One of the greatest musicians this country, or the world for that matter, has ever produced. The man was an international treasure, and yet even he needed the help of his community to cover medical costs.
Maybe this is an old story that we’ve all heard way too often: the one about super talented creative people being taken advantage of throughout their careers until they’re left with little at a time in their lives when they need it most. Even the clever impresario Giorgio Gomelsky, whose life story motivated me to start The Non-Writer, somehow fell into this trap. Some of you who are familiar with that life story might be saying “wasn’t it Giorgio who took advantage of his artists, not paying them properly and taking the rights to their music?” There’s no doubt that he burned a few bridges in his time. Just ask John McLaughlin or Brian Auger. To them I would say, the music business, even more than most, is and always has been a vicious pecking order with the “talent” residing at the bottom of the food chain, sometimes getting pecked to death. Giorgio was as creative as the artists he worked with, and perhaps with that came a lack of interest in paying as much attention to the pecking as was needed. Giorgio was pecked away at too. He died a pauper. But before that, his community came together with benefit events to help him.
When I started interviewing musicians who worked with Gomelsky I was quick to contact the original members of Material. Over a couple of months I was able to track down and talk with each one, except for their guitar player Cliff Cultreri. Each member of the band has had an amazing career in music. Cliff is the one that did NOT become a music producer. His path led him to become an A&R executive for record companies. The artists he helped to develop include Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Allan Holdsworth, Billy Sheehan and Talas, Megadeth, Corrosion Of Conformity, Exodus, Anthrax, Death, Venom, Slash's Snakepit, My Bloody Valentine, the Cure, Modern English, Gene Loves Jezebel and many more (according to guitarworld.com). Vai has done a number of online tributes to Cliff, as well as teaming up with Satriani for more than one benefit concert. Here’s a YouTube clip of one:
Jul 14, 2011
Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Orianthi, Dweezil Zappa, Brandon Smalls, Paul Gilbert help out to pay for the medical bills of music industry vet Cliff Cultreri to the tune of $100,000.
As you can tell by the date, Cliff’s medical costs have been ongoing for some time. You can find his current GoFundMe page here:
Raise funds for a Van for Cliff's Wheelchair
The name that will always be synonymous with the band Material is Bill Laswell. I was thrilled to talk with him in Feb of last year. It was a phone interview and he sounded pretty good in the conversation although he had a slight cough. I never heard him talk about his personal life much in past interviews, and I wasn’t interested in going there anyway, so I’m not certain in what condition his health was at the time. Since then he’s had a benefit show that was streamed live with Praxis in which he played seated and was clearly in some pain when he got up at the end of the show. He’s been very open on Facebook about his current situation, speaking through his partner who does most of the posting.
Buckethead/Praxis Full Show 8/31/2022!
It’s been a rollercoaster ride of recovery and setbacks for Laswell and his friends who have been helping him. Like many musicians, he depends on being able to work not only to bring in income, but more importantly to keep the creative juices flowing — the essence of life for any artist. For Laswell this means having a studio, and the one he’s been operating in for decades has been in danger of slipping away from him. His current GoFundMe is specifically to address this. He had an earlier campaign that reached its goal of helping him with health care and living costs.
Stop the Orange music studio eviction
Related Story
Bill Laswell Interview - when Bill first met Ornette, Miles, Eno … and Gomelsky
Which brings me to the third GoFundMe campaign that I want to talk about. The most difficult one.
Brad Schreiber is the author of many books and one of my best friends. Last year he won the William Randolph Hearst Award for Outstanding Service in Professional Journalism. Two of his books are about music:
Music Is Power: Popular Songs, Social Justice, and the Will to Change
During the pandemic I kept in touch with a close group of friends around the world by having a group Zoom session a couple of times a month. When Brad stopped showing up, I got concerned. We live 400 miles apart, which is a testament to how we’ve maintained our friendship over the decades, so I couldn’t just go over to his house and knock on the door. Although I’ve visited him in LA many times, I did not know any of his LA friends. Eventually, through internet sleuthing, I was able to contact one person, and thankfully they were the right person. Brad was in the hospital, but now enough time had passed that he was recovering well.
It was two kinds of cancer that put him in the hospital abruptly, but they treated it in time and he was going home to resume his life with some rehab sessions now added to his schedule of activities.
Since then, I visited him a couple of times, the most recent being last April. We had a fantastic time together romping all over LA, just like the old days.
After I got home, a couple of weeks went by and my phone calls with Brad started getting cut short because he was feeling ill. Each day it kept getting worse. I begged him to get help and he eventually went to an urgent care place that misdiagnosed him. Another week or two went by before he ended up in intensive care. His cancer had returned. It was very bad now. I didn’t think he was going to make it.
But he did make it. I was able to finally have a very brief phone chat with him by early June. It still didn’t look good but he was at least conscious. Now, here we are in late August and he’s finally able to undergo the treatment he needs to recover and go home. When that will happen is still unknown.
Here’s his GoFundMe:
I’m sure many of you know of more GoFundMe campaigns and I invite you to share them with us here in the comments. Every one of these campaigns will urge you to “spread the word”, so please do.