Timothy J. Young Memorial Show
Last few weeks I attended the Timmy Young Memorial Show @ The Eleven’s. I taped some of it and Ira McKinley did too. Ira just recently aired his on NCTV cable television. I haven’t yet but soon plan to.
Below are some clips from that show:
Here is F. Alex Johnson doing a fine rendition of Jimi Hendrix’s “Castles Made of Sand.” That’s David Hayes cheering in the beginning.
The Danger Birds doing a ruckus performance of the 13th Floor Elevator’s “You’re Gonna Miss Me.” They’re called The Danger Birds, but why is there a picture of a dog onstage.
I came around 8pm and the show began w/ a performance of the melancholy “Maggot Brain,” a song written by The Funkadelics, only here, played alone on guitar by Justin Bard. This lead into The Ray Mason Band, segue to a solo bass performance by Dave Hayes. He said that he never really got to fistbump Timmy, so instead he wanted to play an instrumental in remembrance of him.
Christian William Reader as MC
Christian William Reader was the host for that night. There were many of Timmy’s friends attending that night, some who might’ve been old fellow students from The Clark School For The Deaf. Because of this, The Eleven’s had a sign language interpreter, introducing each band and interpreting anyone who wished to share some memories of Tim. Elliot Tarry, former host of the open mic poetry night @ the old Fire & Water Cafe, talked about how he remembered an elf of a man throwing a paper airplane @ his window. That was the childlike Timmy, as he was remembered way back in Northampton history. Al Houghton of the Iron Horse Music Hall spoke as well. See this clip, courtesy of Cher Love Strong:
I purchased three tapes to record on for that event. This was all on tape one. Other highlights on this tape include The Carolyn Conspiracy performing “I’ll Fly Away” on organ, and Ella Longpre doing “Motherless Children Have A Hard Time/This Train.”
Christian introduced a few of the bands as if they came from around the world, and toured extensively. One of these includes Jason & Michael from The Novels. He also did the same for The Steamrollers, who are not really a famous band from the 80s (as Christian said) but are really a contemporary one. And get this, the lead singer is actually an English professor from Holyoke Community College. Other performers that day were Shawn Fogel, who did a great rendition of the theme song to “Different Strokes,” The Merchant Bankers doing a song about NOHO, MA (“Paradise” they call it), as well as a few more people who shared their memories about Tim. One, a man named “Jimmy” who identified himself as “a black man” (and he truly was) came onstage and did an a cappella version of “My Girl” — the audience later joined in.
I got most of the show videotaped, but unfortunately my tapes ran out. Ira finished for me right after The Swill Merchants played. Here’s a clip:
The show went on from 8pm-2am. Anyway, it was a great tribute for the No. 1 music supporter in the Valley.
Newspaper Article by Bob Flaherty
Here is Timmy’s obituary from The Daily Hampshire Gazette:
Timothy Young obituary
Timmy Memorial Service @ the Iron Horse
The Iron Horse Music Hall later had a Memorial Service for Timmy, on Saturday Oct 24, 2009. Below is a clip of Leslie Fraidstern proposing that the mayor of the city appoints a “Timmy Young Northampton Town Crier;” someone who can let everybody know about shows and events coming up in the Valley.
A lot of people came to this event (standing room only). Eric Suher gave a moving speech as well. At the very end, we all flew paper airplanes as a passing gesture for Timmy. This is now the 2nd memorial and, most likely, final tribute for Timmy J. Young. Maybe we can now put this one to rest.
Tags: live, music, northampton ma, timmy, young
