Music |
Jesse Malin
By
Published: Aug 22, 2023
Category:
Rock
A few years ago, I “discovered” Jesse Malin. More accurately, “Todd Youth,” one song by Jesse Malin. I watched the video dozens of times that summer because it so accurately delivered a time and a place. I praised him on Butler: Jesse Malin is the kid with the shoe box under his bed that’s filled with skipping stones from sunny days and bottle caps from bad breakups. He’s the guy who can pick out each individual coin in a Central Park fountain and tell you the wish of every last person who let it fly from her hand. He grew up to become the poet laureate of a Lower East Side where no one has much money but everyone has a life — especially the kid on skates who’s kind of playing guitar in a bar. Todd Youth was in a bunch of bands you never heard of; he died, at 47, in India. Killer lyric: “I never say goodbye, it just ends.” Watch/listen.
As it turns out, Jesse Malin had been lavishly praised on Head Butler — by Guest Butler Mike Hume, who was then writing a weekly music feature for the Falls Church News-Press in Northern Virginia. His review ran in 2006, when Butler was in diapers, some 2,500 reviews ago. Scroll down for that review.
I was thinking about Jesse Malin today because it’s one of the ten best days of the year in New York. And as I circled the track, collecting 6,000 steps, I thought of this musician, in a wheelchair, wishing he could dance and knowing he never will.
What happened to Jesse Malin?
Early in May, while having dinner with friends at a restaurant, he suffered a spinal cord stroke, and, at 56, was paralyzed from the waist down. Spinal cord strokes are rare. They occur when the blood flow to the spine is blocked, which can happen because of a blood clot, plaque buildup in the arteries or bleeding in the spinal cord. These strokes are rare, accounting for less than 1% of all strokes; if they’re not treated right away, they can lead to paralysis and death.
Jesse Malin had several surgeries at Mount Sinai Hospital and then began as many as three sessions of physical therapy a day at an NYU rehab center. Lower East Side rockers aren’t rich, so there is a GoFund Me. Why give? Because Jesse Malin gave time and talent to every cause that asked. Because his music is relentlessly affirmative. Because it’s a beautiful day, and aren’t we lucky. To read about Jesse Malin and donate, click here.
Here’s Mike Hume’s 2006 review:
Jesse Malin gets people. He can sift through all the strands of their stories and pluck from them just one thread that will tell their tale in its entirety. Then, stringing it along the neck of his guitar, he’ll tune it, strum it and share it.
That’s what makes Malin great. Not billboard advertisements, his name in lights on the marquee, the late night appearances, the radio play — he’s got none of that, which is why you probably haven’t heard of him.
But consider this: At the “Light of Day” benefit show in 2005, Malin ran into Bruce Springsteen. Malin passed along a copy of his CD. A week later the phone rang. It was Springsteen. He wanted Malin to join him for a Christmas benefit concert in Asbury Park. Springsteen and his band learned three of Malin’s tunes, which they performed at the show. Here is Broken Radio.
