Tragedy and Bottom of the Hudson

Bottom of the Hudson was formed in 1998 in Charlottesville, VA, a 3 hour drive from my living room. Not that I noticed. They moved to Philadelphia in 2003 and had released numerous EPs, though never an LP, all without my awareness or acknowledgement. I hadn't heard of this band until last week when I read a Chromewaves post on their first full-length, almost 9 years in the making, during my weekly blogroll. "Beehives" stuck in my head immediately and I dedicated a mental post-it to check out more from them in the next week or so. Two days after Bottom of the Hudson was introduced to my ears, their van blew a tire just outside of Clinton, NC and flipped numerous times, taking the life of bassist Trevor Butler and fracturing the skull of drummer Greg Lytle.

I heard about it first on one of my all-time favorite blogs Said the Gramophone. The site's founder Sean Michaels, who puts words together in a way I can only stand in awe of, wrote an incredibly poignant eulogy of sorts and I can't help but re-post a portion of it here.

"It seems tasteless to write a eulogy to a person you never knew. An obituary - okay. Just the facts. But a eulogy? Who am I to light a candle in a stranger's memory? A man whose eyes I've never seen?

At moments like this it feels so clear that music is a touch. If nothing else it is a hand placed on yours. How can I call this a band of strangers, they whose hands I've felt on mine? The men whose voices, whose fingers on strings & keys I've brought into my room after dark? They have given me these songs and I have heard them with my heart held wide open..." [read more]

My friends So Many Dynamos were in a hauntingly similar accident a week before this tragedy and were spared a similar fate, all miraculously surviving with a few scrapes and bruises. It's moments like these where we can see life in one hand, death in the other, and see how closely related they are. Moments where we can be thankful for each breath, every touch from the music and musicians we love, and cherish them always.

Listen:
Rusty Zippers
Beehive
[from Fantastic Hawk|buy/donate]