Tag Archives: Mark Maryanovich

DownTown Blog – Better Day Part 4

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So I was ready to get my Stem Cell Transplant in March 2019 but there was a Mercury Retrograde going on and I was not going to have any communications or equipment break down at such an important moment in my life. So I asked to have the transplant moved to April and it proved to be a very good move because the 45 year old woman, who had been a perfect 10 out of 10 match to be my donor, failed her physical in March and was taken off the donor roll. It was time for Plan B.

Plan B was to go to my family because of a bloodline and find a donor. I’m an only child with no siblings, so the next circle would be my first cousins. The cutoff age to be a donor is 60 yrs. because at that age everybody starts to make cells which are unique only to them. Science doesn’t quite understand why this happens, but it happens. All my cousins are over 60 so now I needed to go to their kids. Luckily my oldest cousin’s son volunteered to be tested at Christmas and had been a match. Actually, he is what is known as a Half Match because my father and his grandmother (brother & sister) shared the same gene and so do we. It’s called a Half Match because the bloodline is on only 1 side of the family, but sometimes it’s favored over a stranger who is a 10 out of 10 match because of the bloodline.

The hero to my rescue was Marc Dral, my first cousin once removed, who had just turned 40. He was in from the start when I first asked him at Christmas and now I had to call him to let him know my 1st donor had failed her physical. To his credit, Marc never wavered in his help and support and for that I will always be eternally grateful. In fact, the whole experience of having to ask my relatives for their help was a very emotional experience. I had an outpouring of love and support from my wife’s family lining up to volunteer, including their friends. Unfortunately, like my wife, they’re complete strangers blood wise, but it was very gratifying to know they wanted to have my back.

Robert & Marc

Marc made his stem cell donation as planned in April and I received the transplant in May because I got sick in April a week before the scheduled day. I went into the hospital on May 2 and for 6 days they hit me with heavy doses of chemotherapy to kill off my immune system. Then on May 8th, I got my transplant and it’s considered to be your 2nd birthday because the nurses come in the room with a balloon and birthday greetings because I’ve been technically reborn with the immune system of a newborn baby. The idea of the transplant is for Marc’s cells to take over and form a new immune system in my body. I’m as defenseless as a baby and need to get all my vaccinations all over again. My blood type is now the same as Marc’s.

I would spend 26 days in the hospital. I had my own private room on the transplant floor at HUMC and the best of care from the doctors and nurses there. Just days before I went in I received my copy of TunedLoud Magazine with my photo on the cover. It came as a total surprise because the editor had to cancel the original cover because the artist wasn’t ready to release his project, which left an opening for the cover. The editor thought I was deserving of being on the cover and put me on and made me the centerfold story with other great photos that Mark Maryanovich had shot. Every time a nurse of doctor would visit I would pull out the magazine to show them and tell them that “I bet you didn’t know you were treating a celebrity”. LOL

I also brought the Rock’n’Roll Romantic cd to give out to anyone who might be interested in listening. Music would become a big part of my rehab there, particularly with 2 people. I gave the cd to an aide named Mark who looked after me. One day he came back to tell me he had listened to the cd and how impressed he was with my music. He went the extra step by playing me on Spotify over the speaker system on the ward. Every time I would go out of the room to walk around the ward (23 laps=1 mile), Mark would have my music playing in the halls. It was very uplifting for me to hear my music being played as I did my laps. THANK YOU Mark!! 😎

The other important person who came into my life there was Ike Lester. Ike did the caricature of me that’s on the inside panel of the Better Day cd. He used to do political caricatures for the Village Voice in NYC and was now volunteering his time doing them for the patients at the hospital. Ike is a soul man all the way and our talks about music and life were inspiring for me. I wasn’t very impressed with the 1st drawing he did of me until I realized that I really did look that bad. It wasn’t Ike’s fault. He might have made it a bit better. Then one day I showed him my magazine cover and he flipped over the photos, immediately picking one he wanted to draw. A couple of weeks later he knocked on my door and brought in the finished copy. It was GREAT!! I told him I would put it on the new cd I was planning and was able to give it to him after I was over my 100 days of quarantine after leaving the hospital. THANK YOU Ike!! 😎

I’m always surprised that people want to hear about what I went through during my stay and I understand why. Modern medicine is really doing amazing and unbelievable things but I will leave it here, except to say that I have 100% of Marc’s blood in me. The latest bone marrow test showed that there is no cancer or any blasts and I continue to regain my strength. Besides Marc and the great staff at HUMC, I owe my recovery to the love of my life—my wife Barbara, who is also my caregiver. I know it’s because of her undying love and care that I’m still around to tell my story. I’m a very fortunate and lucky man. 🙂

DownTown Blog – Better Day Part 2

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As you will see, the making of the Better Day album would become an adventure. 2 weeks before going in the studio to start recording, I had done a photoshoot in NYC with LA photographer Mark Maryanovich, which I considered to be part of the project. I had never released any DownTown Mystic recording with my face on the cover and I intended that to change with Better Day.

The following week after the photoshoot, Mark got back to LA and sent me the photos. I hate to take photos of myself but Mark had done an incredible job. Even I was really impressed. There were so many great shots to choose from. Mark had given me everything I needed to get the project rolling. With my head filled with good vibes, I entered the studio ready to rock!

courtesy of @markmaryanovich

The tracking sessions took place at Showplace Studios with my engineer of 20 years Ben Elliott and then recording moved to Sound Spa here in NJ, helmed by Stephen DeAcutis, also known as Stevie D. I had worked with Steve before and knew he was also a great guitar player. Given that DownTown Mystic is primarily all guitars, I figured Steve would be the best man to work with on the new songs. Steve was still in the process of finishing his own album Torn From The Pages with Cory Glover, of Living Colour fame, on vocals. So I was in very good hands.

Steve Holley, Robert & Paul Page

The sessions were a blast. Steve Holley and Paul Page provided the backing as the rhythm section (which they also do for Ian Hunter’s Rant Band) and the end result was some of the best music I had ever recorded, including some of my best guitar solos. From the Tom Petty inspired 12-string solo on Better Day to the ripping guitar on Modern Ways. One of the more memorable moments came one night when I was trying to flesh out the solo on The Wish. I had asked Lance Doss to put down a guitar part for me just before he was to pack up and go home. He laid down a part in one pass. Some of it worked and some of it needed some improvement. So for about 30 minutes I toiled trying to piece something together with what Lance had played and it wasn’t working.

Lance & Robert

Now sitting next to me punching in my takes is Steve. I’m looking at him and thinking, “what am I doing here”? I handed him my Les Paul and asked him to have a try and just play whatever he wanted. I think he had the solo finished and recorded within 10 minutes and it was perfect! These are the moments, as a producer, that I live for. It was truly magical! Lance and I never stood a chance. So my intuition to work with Steve had already paid a big dividend.

At The Spa

We finished the sessions in early October and it would be another month before I could get more studio time. 2 weeks later I went for my annual physical with my primary doctor, Dr. Edward Gold. When the doctor called a few days later with the results, I was not really surprised by what he said. For the past 2 years Dr. Gold had been trying to find out the cause of my hemoglobin dropping. His diagnosis had been Chronic Anemia, which I was never really satisfied with. Now he told me my hemoglobin had dropped from 9.2 to 7.2 in the last 6 months (normal hemoglobin range is 14-18). He said we needed to do another bone marrow test to see what was going on.

I went for the bone marrow test and got the results from Dr. Gold on Halloween before I left for the studio to continue recording. The doctor said I had what they used to call “pre-leukemia”, now called MDS (Myelodysplastic Syndrome). Actually, in an odd way, I took this as kind of good news because there was finally an explanation for what I was going through in the last 2 years. The doctor wanted me to see a specialist, Dr. James McCloskey at HUMC. I called and made an appointment and then headed out the door for Sound Spa. I was not going to let anything deter me from finishing the album, especially now. Who knew what was ahead of me? The main thing was to stay in the moment and make music.

Steve & Rob

I remember walking into the studio and talking to Stephen. We would usually chat before a session about what was going on since we had seen each other last and I told him my news. I could see the concern on his face and I told him I would be ok. In previous conversations I had with Steve, I told him about my sessions with Dr. Peebles and Natalie Gianelli, who channels the good doctor (this would make for another post). The main teachings of Dr. Peebles are to take responsibility for your life and to connect with your heart, which will connect you to your Higher Self and who you really are. The mind (ego) will always try to get involved and micro-manage everything, which makes it hard for us to get out of our own way. Dr. Peebles told me that everything in my life was always working for me and never against me. So I was now applying that to the MDS and looking at how it was going to benefit me. Little did I know how much this new mindset would help me in the days to come.

courtesy of @markmaryanovich

With the discussion over, I changed my focus back to the music and spent the next week recording and mixing. Song titles like Better Day, The Wish, One More Chance, Love Light, One Step Closer, Read The Signs and Lost & Found took on very different meanings then they had just a few days before and the irony wasn’t lost on me. The positive vibes that started with the photoshoot had continued with the recording sessions and helped me to keep my attention in the present moment. What was about to occur was not something I was giving a lot of thought to and this will be the 1st time I’ve ever talked about it at any length, so please keep that in mind.

courtesy of @markmaryanovich

I continued recording and mixing the Better Day album in the first week of November 2018. The following week I met with Dr. James McCloskey, the head of the Leukemia Dept. at the John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center here in NJ. Dr. McCloskey had looked at my bone marrow test and told me that the test revealed I was making these irregular cells called “blasts” at 12% of my cells. He said that at 20% it’s considered to be Leukemia. At 12% I was in the high range and needed to be treated as soon as possible, because unchecked, the blasts would become Leukemia cells. He said that I was a good candidate for a new drug trial he was doing that was in its 3rd and final stage before getting approval by the FDA. It was a chemotherapy drug in pill form that took the place of the intravenous drug and with fewer side effects.

But the real news of my meeting was that there was a CURE for MDS, usually a bone marrow or stem cell transplant. I then met with the Transplant Team headed by Dr. Scott Rowley. The plan was for me to enter the drug trial, get as healthy as possible and then get a transplant. I started the chemo treatment in December for a full week and every month after until March, when I met with Dr. Rowley and was told that I was ready for the transplant. My hemoglobin was up to 13.2 and the blasts had been reduced down to 2%. I was feeling so good I asked them to put off the transplant until April. It seemed I was going to have a Better Day. 😎

To be continued…

DownTown Blog – Better Day Part 1

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In the last blog post, I wrote about how the album still lives and the new Better Day album I’ve just released will be a case in point. I decided back in late summer 2018 that I would create an album of all positive songs and call it Better Day. This was a year before I would hold the actual album in my hands. Now I was gearing up to go into the studio in early Fall 2018 to start recording the material that would become Better Day.

I had started the year by deciding to finish writing 2 songs that were “sitting in the can” as it were, meaning I had recorded the basic tracks for them during previous projects and never finished them. One had been “sitting in the can” for 9 years and the other one for 6 years! It was finally time to get down to finishing each one and then recording them later in the year.

courtesy of @markmaryanovich

The 1st song that I finished writing from 2009 was called The Wish and the other one from 2012 was called Love Light. I had put the rough mixes from the studio sessions on my 8-Tk digital recorder so that I could record vocals and guitar parts and get a demo for each song. Soon I added demos of 2 other songs, Better Day and Modern Ways. I was so happy with the results that I booked time for the end of September to record them.

It had been 7 years since my last photoshoot and I knew this was the time for new photos. I was supposed to have a photoshoot in August with LA photographer Mark Maryanovich but it had been canceled due to a week of constant rain. Mark called me a couple of weeks later and said he would be in NYC the 2nd week of September and we should book a session. This turned out to be a stroke of luck as the weather was now 20 degrees cooler than back in August and with the studio already booked for the end of the month, this would allow me to get in the proper frame of mind as an artist.

courtesy of @markmaryanovich

Mark had asked me to scout out some locations for the shoot. He said he was looking for a kind of gritty street vibe, or something like that. I had recently seen a video that Bruce Engler had done using the Brooklyn Bridge. There was a shot at the end of the video that had the bridge in the background and I sent it to Mark to see what he thought of the location. Mark loved it and said it was perfect for what he wanted to do with me.

courtesy of @markmaryanovich

Bruce said there was a warehouse area on the Brooklyn side under the bridge. This seemed like the logical place to start with Mark. So a week later I got up with my wife Barbara at 3am on a Saturday morning to meet Mark and his wife Carolyne down at the Circle Line on the West Side Highway in Manhattan so we could get over the Brooklyn Bridge at 5am because Mark wanted to shoot with his light setup. The area under the Brooklyn Bridge would turn out to be a better location than expected for a photoshoot.

Courtesy of Barbara Szala

Not only was there a warehouse that was lit up at night, but once you walked around a small bird sanctuary with trees and bushes blocking the view, there was a small park and Jane’s Carousel, glass-enclosed and all lit up with the East River rolling by. We worked for over 2 hours as the dawn broke in a light misty rain. We left about 7:15am back over the bridge to our 2nd location in lower Manhattan.

Courtesy of Barbara Szala

I had picked the Wall St. area because I knew it had some of the oldest bars & cafes in the city. There was one area where 2 streets crossed by Del Monicos but it was Saturday and that’s trash day. The streets were filled with black trash bags piled all over the place. We needed to find another location. As luck would have it, we had passed a cobblestone street, appropriately called Stone Street, as we made our way up to the 1st location. With all the streets being 1-ways, we circled back around to find Stone Street.

Courtesy of Barbara Szala

I pulled in front of the oldest café in NYC on the corner of Stone Street so Mark and his wife Carolyne could get out and scout the location. About 10 minutes later Mark came running back and motioned me to get out and follow him. I walked down the cobblestones to the middle of the block where Mark was standing in front of a private residence that was undergoing renovation with scaffolding all around it. In front of the residence’s entry was a small thru street that was now blocked off to traffic, making it a private driveway.

Courtesy of Barbara Szala

I quickly ran back to my car and backed it down the street and into the private driveway, hidden from view. Mark set up his equipment and for the next 90 minutes, we had our own little set and a complete run of the street. The rain stopped as Mark started shooting me on a street unlike anywhere in NYC. You would have thought we were in Vienna or some other old city in Europe. It really was unbelievable and thanks to the clouds, there were no shadows that would have been created had the sun been out. Mark and I couldn’t have asked for a better day or 2 better locations.

courtesy of @markmaryanovich

As we wrapped up the shoot I went into the bakery across from the driveway, which had just opened, to buy everyone lattes. Then we packed up and headed back to mid-town Manhattan to drop off Mark and Carolyne at their hotel, having completed a somewhat magical morning in NYC. Mark and I had been talking about doing a photoshoot together for over a year and now it had finally come to pass. There was no way back then that we could have planned such a day. With the photoshoot behind me, I was now in the right frame of mind to head into the studio. 😎

To be continued…