A community’s response to a tragic accident, addressing the flaws in the current healthcare system.
By Emma Hernandez
On a Friday night in May, Jake Stults went skateboarding with a couple of friends. He was never into doing tricks or stunts, and boarded mainly as a means for transportation. It was a mistake that he didn’t wear a helmet, a common mistake that usually never has any grave or lasting repercussions.
That night, Jake fell off his board, hit his head, and was rushed to Legacy Emanuel Hospital on North Gantenbein Avenue with severe brain trauma. Doctors immediately performed two surgeries but unfortunately, the injuries to his brain stem were too severe. By 4 p.m. on Saturday, Jake was pronounced brain dead. He was taken off life support on Sunday. He was 31 years old.
Barrie Cohn, a 29-year-old Brooklyn-based show promoter, host of the Generic Insight Radio show, and a long-time friend of Jake’s knew something was wrong through status updates on Facebook. She explains “Jesse [a mutual friend] was being cryptic the night before, and the next morning, I wake up and he posted a picture of him, Jake and our friend Tara and was like ‘I cannot believe this is happening, I cannot believe you’re gone’. At first it didn’t register in my head that he could possibly mean Jake, I thought he meant Tara for some reason. But then Tara commented on the status.”
As soon as Barrie picked up her phone to call Jesse, it rang at that same moment. It was Jesse. “I picked up the phone and said ‘Dude, what the fuck is going on?’, and he was just sobbing. He said ‘Jake died. No, not completely, he was in an accident and they’re taking him off life support later today,’” she recalls. “I’ve known this kid for like three years, longer than that, and he was always like the big macho dude, but he was just sobbing, completely beyond words at this point.”
Barrie then called Aaron Scott, another mutual friend who was at the hospital with Jake’s family and he kept her updated on his progress. Later that day, Jake passed away. It was Mother’s Day.
Jake was a musician who grew up on a farm in the New Jersey area, and his advocacy for animal rights were deeply rooted since childhood, which would transfer over into his adult life and inspired his choice to live a vegetarian lifestyle. In his late teens, he played guitar in Staten Island-based band Dreams Forever Drowning, then moved on to playing in In First Person/Rebel Alliance, did a short stint in Monty Love, and played with Aaron’s hardcore/punk band De La Hoya on their last US tour. His love for math was inked in his skin with an algebraic equation tattooed on the inner bicep of his left arm. He loved kids and loved teaching. He lived in Jersey City and taught autistic children on the Lower East Side of Manhattan before embarking on a cross-country road trip that led to him to Portland, OR which he once referred to as the “hardcore kid retiring home”. He found a job teaching computer science at a private school, met his wife, and settled down.
Video for Dreams Forever Drowning’s “As a Second Self”
Barrie remembers a conversation she had with Jake while she was visiting him in Portland. “Literally the week before [the accident], I was having a conversation with Jake about health insurance and how much it sucks and he was like ‘Yeah, I’m not insured right now, I’m waiting to get renewed.” At the time of the accident, the hospital provided him with the best care possible despite him being uninsured. But the lack of coverage left Jake’s wife and family facing immense medical bills of close to $150,000, on top of grieving the loss of a loved one.
Both Barrie and Aaron felt compelled, through their loyalty to Jake, to help him out one last time by helping his family and his wife, and quickly channeled their grieving into doing. When most communities would hold bake sales or send flowers, the hardcore/punk scene responds in the only way it knows how: through music and live shows. Aaron explains this process:
Aaron Quote 1 by heycoffeeeyes
Within two weeks of his friend’s death, Aaron used this apparatus to help raise money. A show that had already booked his project Attica! Attica! at the Red and Black Cafe in Portland was now bearing Jake’s name, and asking for donations at the door for his family’s overwhelming expenses:
Another benefit was held in Portland through the skateboarding community and managed to raise $1134 for the Jake Stults Foundation, an account set up by Jake’s wife and family through Paypal and Wells Fargo bank to accept donations:
Flyer for Streets on Fire screening benefit
While Jake’s friends were hosting benefits in Portland, across the country in Brooklyn, Barrie reacted in a similar way. “Right after [Jake] was taken off life support, I started planning something in my head,” she says, “but I didn’t think it would be as big as it ended up being. I just wanted to do a little something to help.”
Barrie is referring to the Jake Stults benefit show that she booked for September 25 at the Party Xpo in Brooklyn, which brought prominent bands in the hardcore/punk genre, namely Achilles from upstate NY who rarely play shows and Ruiner from Baltimore, MD, who made it their second to last show before calling it quits. Getting a band like Ruiner, who gained a strong fanbase through years of relentless touring throughout their career, to play one of their last shows is part of what made this particular show more successful, because of their draw (draw meaning how many people would attend a show because of a certain band). People knew it would be one of the last times they would get to see Ruiner play live, so they made especially sure to check out the show. Barrie explains the process of booking them over tofu and broccoli and white rice at China City Restaurant across from the Party Xpo, where she books most of her shows:
Barrie Quote 1 by heycoffeeeyes
Ruiner at the Jake Stults Benefit show, photo by Hilary J. Corts
The functioning structure of the DIY show is generally the same across the country. You walk into the venue (in the case of Barrie’s show, a former Party Expo with graffitied walls and stripped, bare wood floors), the person at the door takes your cash (usually anywhere from $8-$12) and they mark up your hand (usually with an x) and you’re in. At the end of the night, the cash gets divided between the bands and the promoter for renting the space, and sometimes touring bands get more because of gas money/food expenses. But with benefit shows, all the bands basically play for charity and all the money generated from ticket and door sales is donated to the cause. As a show promoter, Barrie is aware that getting bands to agree to do this might not be the easiest thing, but because of the severity of the situation, most bands were eager to help. Barrie explains the process of booking Achilles, a band who, because they’ve been away from the spotlight for so long, also had a huge draw:
Barrie Quote 2 by heycoffeeeyes
Achilles shares members with two very active bands (Chris Browne, the drummer in Achilles plays guitar in Polar Bear Club and Achilles singer Rory van Grol also sings in Soul Control), but came out of their inactivity to play in Jake’s memory (Jake and Rory were friends), Another Breath wanted on board not because they knew Jake personally, but knew Aaron and played as a favor, Another Breath’s side project Mayflower opened up the show because they wanted to play a song they had written about a friend who died and deemed it appropriate, and after a shift in his schedule, Aaron was able to make arrangements for a cross-country flight so Attica! Attica! could play a set. Bands drove 6+ hours from either upstate NY or Baltimore, MD (and in Aaron’s case, flew 2,000+ miles) to be there in support for Jake and his family during their time of immense need.
Achilles at the Jake Stults Benefit show, photo by Hilary J. Corts
Another Breath at the Jake Stults benefit show, photo by Hilary J. Corts
“It is sometimes harder [to book bands for benefits], so that’s why in this case it was ridiculously cool that all these bands came from so far away, and only two bands took money for gas,” Barrie says, “ everybody else refused money which I thought was pretty awesome.”
The show itself was successful because the bands who played were doing it out of respect of Jake’s memory and because the people attending the show were aware of the impact this had on their community, even if they didn’t know Jake personally. Anyone who isn’t insured or has friends who don’t have health insurance can relate to this situation, which set the tone for an emotionally-charged night. As a musician who played the Jake Stults benefit show in September, and also as one of Jake’s friends, Aaron can attest:
Aaron Quote 2 by heycoffeeeyes
Attica! Attica! at the Jake Stults benefit show, photo by Hilary J Corts
The hardcore/punk/DIY music community responds to death and tragedy in a way that’s similar to religion and church communities, and this similarity is because of the sense of belonging and community that comes from a shared ideology or belief system. Rory (of Achilles and Soul Control) made this same comparison at a show the month after Jake’s death:
Barrie’s show raised $1200 between ticket sales, door sales, and raffle money for prizes like Polar Bear Club’s donated test presses of 2009’s Chasing Hamburg (they originally wanted to play the show but couldn’t due to conflicting schedules). After the show (and after paying small expenses), she was able to donate $1000 straight into the Jacob Stults Foundation.
Benefit shows are the hardcore/punk/DIY music community’s way of doing, helping out their friends or neighbors in need. It’s a way of reacting, and the benefit show fills in where the healthcare system in this country lacks. The strong feeling of belonging that the DIY music scene offers is what drives people to come together and support each other. Aaron explains this :
Aaron Quote 3 by heycoffeeeyes
Aaron continues, “In hardcore there’s a lot of a ‘take care of each other’ vibe in the lyrics and in punk there’s a lot of emphasis on injustice in the lyrics, so that’s part of our common language.” “It’s like ‘there’s this cause and we’re gonna do something about it’ and the injustice lyrics in punk really provide the blueprint for that. The songs are like ‘this is messed up, this is why it’s messed up, this is what we’re gonna do about it,’” Aaron says. “There’s this implicit action, like we need to be doers.” And that’s the exact ideology behind the DIY music scene itself. It’s about doing.
