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| r | y | a | n |
| [ ryan ] [ everybody's ryan stories ] [ write me ] |
|
this is sean. i played guitar in snow emergency with ryan for three years. i'm eighteen, i just got out of
high school, and i start community college next week, which i'm supposed to be excited about. ryan was
supposed to be starting too. we were going to carpool.
ryan mcinerney died on july 9 of a really bad asthma attack. he was nineteen. he'd had asthma his whole life and it never stopped him from doing anything, including screaming for forty minutes straight in a vfw hall with no air conditioning in august. and then one night at home it got bad really fast and that was it. i don't know how to do a memorial page. i've never done any page. my cousin showed me how to do the html. i'm just going to put everything down. |
| who ryan was |
|
- he was the loudest person i have ever met and the nicest. both at the same time. he'd scream in your face on
stage and then help you find your car keys after. - he stage dove off the folding chairs at the vfw hall. there's no stage at the vfw hall. he'd stand on a folding chair and jump off it into like eleven people. one time there were only four people and he did it anyway and they caught him. barely. - he was always borrowing his inhaler back. he'd leave it in daryl's van or my jacket or on top of the amp, and then halfway through practice he'd go "hey has anybody got my inhaler" and somebody always did. we all just carried it around for him. we thought that was funny. - he worked at the car wash out by the mall, drying cars with a chamois. he came to practice smelling like cherry air freshener every single time. he said it was his cologne. he wrote a song about it. - he wore the same black hooded sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off for three years. his mom finally washed it in june. he was mad for a week. - he read everything. he had a milk crate of paperbacks in his car. he lent me a book about the spanish civil war and i never gave it back and now i can't. - he called everybody "buddy." old guys at the car wash, cops, his mom, a dog. - he never drank or smoked. ever. people don't believe that about a punk singer but it's true. he said his lungs had enough problems. - he gave away most of what he made at the car wash. if somebody's band needed gas money to get to a show in kalamazoo, ryan had it. |
| snow emergency, the whole history |
|
fall 1996 - i'm fifteen and i meet ryan at a show because he's wearing a shirt of a band i like and i'm the only
other person there who knows who they are. he says do you play anything. i say guitar. i barely do. winter 1996 - daryl has a drum set and a basement, so daryl is in the band. gordo has a bass and doesn't know how to play it, so gordo is in the band. we practice every saturday. daryl's mom brings down pizza rolls. january 1997 - the name. ryan picks it off the radio during a snowstorm when they announce the city is in a snow emergency and you can't park on the street. he says that's us. nobody can argue because it's perfect. march 1997 - first show. the vfw hall. we are the first of five bands. we play five songs in eleven minutes. ryan knocks over the mic stand twice and the vfw guy unplugs us. it's the best night of my life so far. summer 1997 - the demo tape. four songs on daryl's brother's four-track in the basement: "fourth period," "cherry air freshener," "dad's cutlass," and "capital city nothing." we dubbed a hundred copies on my sister's stereo and photocopied the covers at the library. three dollars at shows. we sold all of them by christmas and dubbed fifty more. 1997-1998 - shows. the vfw hall like once a month. a church basement in east lansing. the back room of a skate shop. a lot of basements and a lot of living rooms. kalamazoo, grand rapids, flint, ann arbor once, and one awful night in toledo where six people came and two were the other band. ryan graduates in june 1998 and starts at the car wash. spring 1999 - the split 7-inch with trailer hitch from grand rapids. our side has "minimum wage saint" and "grand river flood." three hundred copies on busted speaker records, which is one guy in flint with a p.o. box. we screen printed the covers in gordo's garage and got ink on his dad's truck. june 1999 - we play my graduation party in my parents' backyard. the neighbors call the cops. the cop knows ryan from the car wash and lets us finish the song. that was the last show. we didn't know. july 9, 1999 - ryan. august 21, 1999 - the benefit. (see below.) we haven't played since. we probably won't, not as snow emergency. there's no snow emergency without ryan. daryl and gordo and i still go to shows. we stand in the back. |
| the benefit |
|
ryan's mom is raising his little brother by herself and the funeral cost more than she has. so on saturday,
august 21, we did a benefit show at the vfw hall. seven bands played for free: trailer hitch drove over from grand
rapids, plaid weather, canned ham, nine volt, the pinholes, kitchen fire, and a bunch of guys from three different
bands who got up at the end and played ryan's favorite old punk songs, the ones he always made us cover.
the vfw guys let us have the hall for free, which they never do. the lady who runs the kitchen made sloppy joes. the car wash put a jar on the counter all of july and august and gave us what was in it. tanya made a zine about ryan and sold it for a dollar. somebody's dad who owns a print shop made the flyers for free. we charged five dollars at the door. about two hundred people came, which is the most anybody has ever seen at the vfw. a lot of them paid more than five. we raised $1,312, and the jar from the car wash was another $206. we gave it to his mom in an envelope the next day. she hugged all three of us for a long time and didn't say anything and that was fine. at the end everybody stood on folding chairs. all of them. the whole room. nobody jumped. we just stood up there for a minute. the vfw guy didn't even yell. |
| if you have asthma, take it seriously and see a doctor. please. |
|
a lot of people have written to me with stories about ryan. i put them on everybody's ryan
stories. if you knew him and you want to add one, write me. if you have a copy of the demo tape, keep it. if you
have a picture of him at a show, i'd really like to see it. his mom would too.
see you in the back, buddy. - sean |
