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For Jon Roe, I Don't Want Your Music To Die With You [1]

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Date: 2023-10-08  

I spent most of last night trying to learn this song by ear. There’s a story behind it; probably a long story, but it’s about music, so I hope you’ll all bear with me.

The song is “Summer Wheat”, an instrumental on acoustic guitar written by a dude named Jon Roe. Jon was part of a group of up-and-coming young musicians plying their craft in early 21st century Portland, OR. My son called it their “scene”. (I hope he didn’t hear me crack up at the recycled beatnik term — millennials like to think they’re original.) Jon started a band called The Martyrs; 2 of the 4 guys were also in a band (Project Eldridge) with my son so they would both play at the same gig if they could arrange it. Saved gas on my minivan. So I got to hear Jon play a lot. He had good nights, and then a lot of nights when he was a little too loaded to play well and made do with sloppy versions of his usually brilliant playing. One time the 2 bands played at an outdoor party, and Jon and I found ourselves alone together in a room in the house doing something less legal than pot, if you know what I mean. (Hey, I’m no angel..) I talked about getting old & he talked about how he wasn’t planning on “sticking around much longer”. I said I used to think about suicide & things didn’t seem so bad looking back on a life that didn’t end young. He just kind of shrugged & we went out to rejoin the party. Jon played really well that day; I guess he wasn’t too messed up, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.

In January 2008, Jon drove a Ford Explorer containing my son and 3 of his friends into a tree near Reed College. My son flew head first into the ceiling of the vehicle and had to have major surgery on his upper jaw so his teeth would align right. He’d been passed out but sat up between when the vehicle hit the curb and the tree; we never figured out if he wasn’t wearing a seat belt because it didn’t work or he just didn’t put it on. The five young adults had decided after a party that Jon was the most sober of the group and they gave him the keys. They didn’t know that he was such an experienced drinker/drug addict that he only appeared to be in control. My son bought the car we still have with his insurance settlement, and traveled first to San Francisco with a lady friend and then to eastern Oregon (beautiful high desert country).

One morning in 2014, the mom of the drummer for both bands called to tell me Jon Roe had OD’d. I asked what hospital he was at and she told me no, his mom found him dead that morning. Jon Roe’s dead, were her exact words. From what Jon’s mother could figure out, he’d taken Prozac, drank hard liquor, and when he got home he shot some heroin for good measure. I still wonder what kind of pain or childhood trauma could make someone want to be that dangerously wasted; then I remembered discussing suicide with him at an outdoor party a few years before, and I remembered what made me consider it as a teen. He had been getting so high so often, and screwing up so badly that he’d been fired from his band just before he died. Jon Roe was 22 years old. It was the most heart-wrenching memorial service I’ve ever been to. Everyone was there; I wrote “Love is the Law” in the memorial book for Jon (he was a fan of both Jimmy Page & Aleister Crowley).

One night, many years ago, before I met Jon (or any of the people in our little musician circle), Jon recorded a beautiful acoustic solo piece he and the friend who helped him with it dubbed “Summer Wheat” (it’s the name of the local beer he and his band buddy Mick were drinking while recording it). I saw him play it after a friend of ours told me about this beautiful solo piece he had written, and I drunkenly requested it at the top of my lungs. It’s haunted me, especially since Myspace “lost” almost everything anyone had posted there, and Jon’s tribute page had it on there. I asked Jon’s mom if she had a copy of it, I asked Mick if he had it. One night I felt I had the juju to get online and pull that mp3 sucker out of the ether, and after messing around with what was left of the Myspace files, I remembered a guy that used to follow all the Portland bands around, buying a CD of every band. I happened to see him post on Jon’s mom’s Facebook, and contacted him. Yes, he had the mp3 of “Summer Wheat”. I put headphones on and tapped that little red “play” button on Youtube, and through the wires, hell, through time itself, Jonny Roe was playing this: (enjoy)

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