Jesse Malin has suffered a rare spinal stroke
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Jesse Malin Suffered a Rare Spinal Stroke. He’s Determined to Walk and Dance Again
Malin’s parting-the-Red-Sea bit with his microphone — he requests two 50-foot cords at every show; “the extra linguine,” he calls it — is a signature of his concerts, and it’s how he wants his fans to visualize him right now: walking, strutting, and dancing to and from the stage.
Just a few weeks after the triumphant Webster Hall gig, a 20th-anniversary celebration of his solo debut, The Fine Art of Self Destruction, Malin suffered an exceedingly rare spinal-cord infarction — a stroke in his back — while at dinner in the East Village. Gathered with friends to mark the one-year anniversary of the death of Howie Pyro, Malin’s former D Generation bandmate and best friend, he felt a burning pain in his lumbar region that slowly migrated down his hips, through his thighs, and into his heels. He collapsed onto the floor of the restaurant, unable to walk.
“Everybody was standing above me like in Rosemary’s Baby, saying all these different things, and I was there not knowing what was going on with my body,” Malin says during a phone call from his room at an NYU rehab facility.
Immobilized and numb, Malin was carried by Murphy’s Law singer Jimmy G from the Italian restaurant into the hallway of a nearby apartment, where an ambulance was called to take him uptown to Mount Sinai Hospital.
That was May 4, and the notoriously physical, high-energy performer — his first public stage dive was at age 14 on national TV during a Saturday Night Live performance by Fear — has been paralyzed from the waist down since.
“This is the hardest six weeks that I’ve ever had,” he says. “I’m told that they don’t really understand it, and they’re not sure of the chances. The reports from the doctors have been tough, and there’s moments in the day where you want to cry, and where you’re scared. But I keep saying to myself that I can make this happen. I can recover my body.”
Such undeterred optimism has been Malin’s calling card. He refers to it as “P.M.A.”, or positive mental attitude, from the Bad Brains song “Attitude,” and he’s been preaching it onstage and in interviews for decades. But he admits the P.M.A. has been hard to summon since his freak medical emergency.
“It’s almost like a joke. Like, ‘You talk all this P.M.A.? Well, see how you deal with this,’” he says. “They took me outside for the first time the other day in a wheelchair, and I went through the lobby and I could see the sun shining through the glass, and I just started bawling. It felt like I was watching myself in this movie. I didn’t know this person. By the time I got to the corner, I got myself together and into a park, and just breathed in the air.”
After two weeks at Mount Sinai, where he underwent various spinal procedures, Malin was transferred to his current rehab center at NYU on May 18. His days consist of three rounds of physical therapy and rehabilitation, with the short-term goal of teaching him how to move his body without the use of his legs and do daily tasks. When he’s discharged later this month, he’ll be in a wheelchair and have to relocate from his current walk-up apartment to a new ADA-compliant one with an elevator. It won’t be cheap.
Malin — like so many working musicians who suffer catastrophic events — doesn’t have the finances to support his long-term care and outpatient rehab, despite years of touring and releasing albums, and having health insurance. On Wednesday, Malin’s manager David Bason and a group of friends launched a new campaign via the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund to raise money for the singer. The fully tax-deductible donations, which can be made here, will go directly to Malin’s care.
Malin has mixed feelings about it all. Over his career, he’s been a staunch supporter of New York and the rock & roll community worldwide and, as Rolling Stone’s David Fricke wrote in 2015, “put his money where his heart is, investing in his neighborhood’s rock & roll soul” with popular bars like Niagara and Bowery Electric. He’s produced annual benefits for The Joe Strummer Foundation and Music and Memory; performs at the Light of Day Foundation’s regular concerts; donated proceeds from his pandemic livestreams to food banks, Save Our Stages, and out-of-work bar staff; and curated benefits for friends in need (he threw a series of all-star shows when Pyro was battling liver disease). But he’s reluctant, if not embarrassed, to ask for help himself.
“I always felt that we have a voice with these microphones and with these guitars and with these venues to help each other out. But it’s very hard for me to take back and be that person,” he says. “I don’t want to be a burden, but I’m learning. Just laying here and not being able to walk, it’s very humbling.”
Malin is also losing money from a planned summer tour he had to cancel after his stroke. At the time, he told fans on social media that he had suffered a serious back injury but declined to say more.
“I didn’t want to get into the extremity of it. And now it’s just time to let people know. Even though I really believe it’s a temporary state, I’m not going to walk out of here tomorrow with a leather jacket and a cane and go hang out at the bar. It’s going to take a lot of work and a lot of being in a wheelchair,” he says. “There’s something liberating about the truth, that this is what’s happening to me right now.
Ironically, Malin’s also having some of his most recognized creative success at the moment — with a song that sums up the hoped-for outcome of his situation. “New York Comeback”, a song he co-wrote with Lucinda Williams, who suffered her own stroke in 2020, was Number One at Americana radio last week.
“Even though this has been the hardest time of my life, there’s been some gifts,” Malin says. “I knew I had some great friends and great fans and people in this world, and I’m getting to see a lot of that — though I would have really preferred a birthday party than to find out this way.”
(Jeff Tweedy, Sydney 2007)
“Put yer good money on the sunrise”
(Tim Rogers)
Comments
(Jeff Tweedy, Sydney 2007)
“Put yer good money on the sunrise”
(Tim Rogers)
https://player.vimeo.com/video/840643942
(Jeff Tweedy, Sydney 2007)
“Put yer good money on the sunrise”
(Tim Rogers)
(Jeff Tweedy, Sydney 2007)
“Put yer good money on the sunrise”
(Tim Rogers)
This looks pretty cool. The tracklist hasn't been announced yet but the list of people involved is impressive.
“As always in my songs, the themes are all there— transcendence, positivity and global unity through music,” says Jesse Malin. “This is what I love to do, and I’m going to do everything I can to keep doing it.” Silver Patron Saints: The Songs of Jesse Malin is tribute and benefit album, with all proceeds to Jesse Malin’s Sweet Relief artist fund.
“This record is also a dynamite and long-overdue awareness project, non-stop star time in vigorously personal twists on behalf of a great rock & roll songbook,” writes longtime supporter, David Fricke.
Long a contributor to other people’s causes, Malin is grateful to all the musicians who have rallied around him, including Bruce Springsteen, Billie Joe Armstrong, Lucinda Williams and Elvis Costello, The Hold Steady, Tommy Stinson, Alison Mossheart with the late, great Wayne Kramer, Tom Morello, Counting Crows, Dinosaur Jr., The Wallflowers, Spoon, Susanna Hoffs, Frank Turner and Rancid, among others.
Hear the first single, "Prisoners of Paradise" by Bleachers, and watch the visualiser video. Jack Antonoff takes the song “through tunnel-of-love reverb like Suicide's "Dream Baby Dream" cut after hours at Sun Records in Memphis,” writes Fricke in the liner notes. The triple-vinyl tribute set Silver Patron Saints: The Songs of Jesse Malin, is available for pre-order now on Glassnote Records.
“There’s a feeling of liberation that comes with this, but I don’t want to keep repeating myself either,” adds Malin. “My whole process—since I was 13—is to progress, evolve and challenge myself on each record. I really hope people in all parts of the world can relate to these songs, just the spectrum of emotions, overcoming by celebrating life through music and art.”
In May 2023, Malin suffered a rare spinal stroke that left him paralyzed from the waist down. Last December, Malin told Rolling Stone, “I have a lot of anxiety and insomnia. Your mind goes into some dark places. But I just have to keep a positive outlook and believe.” He is now undergoing a strict daily regimen with physical therapy and stem-cell treatments.
"I am getting some strength back in my legs, but it moves a lot slower than I would like. I don’t want to portray it like I'm ready to do the James Brown splits onstage. I definitely have a long way to go, but I'm blessed and so grateful for the amazing fans and friends that I have,” he told Rolling Stone.
Fricke adds, “Jesse Malin knows about scars – from his youth, observation and more. They all carry tales, and he's not done telling them. Silver Patron Saints is the gang back at the bar, coming to the stage to toast the composer and his story so far.”
https://www.jessemalinmerch.com/products/vinyl
(Jeff Tweedy, Sydney 2007)
“Put yer good money on the sunrise”
(Tim Rogers)
Jesse Malin gave his last headlining public performance on March 25, 2023, at Webster Hall in New York. Less than two months later, he suffered a rare spinal stroke that affected the use of his legs. Now, after more than a year of intense and ongoing physical therapy and treatment, Malin will return to the stage with a roster of all-star friends and guests.
Set for Dec. 1 at the Beacon Theatre in New York, the lineup features Lucinda Williams, Counting Crows’ Adam Duritz and David Immerglück, Rickie Lee Jones, Jakob Dylan of the Wallflowers, Butch Walker, Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis, and Alejandro Escovedo, along with a full set by Malin. More names will be announced at a later date.
The actors Michael Imperioli and Mary-Louise Parker will host the evening. “Jesse Malin is New York City,” Imperioli tells Rolling Stone. “His work and life as an artist, his kindness to his fellow rockers and his generosity to our community is frankly without parallel. He is an eminent rock storyteller in the lineage of Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Tom Verlaine and Joey Ramone. He’s the real deal and I’m lucky to have him as a friend.”
Many of the announced artists on the bill also appear on Silver Patron Saints: The Songs of Jesse Malin, an upcoming tribute album to Malin due Sept. 20. Others covering Malin’s music on the LP include Bruce Springsteen, Bleachers, Susanna Hoffs, the Hold Steady, and Rancid. Last week, Malin released Chasing The Light, a live album and concert DVD filmed in 2022.
All proceeds from the concert will benefit the Jesse Malin Sweet Relief artist fund. Presale tickets for the show go on sale June 26 at 10 a.m. ET via Ticketmaster (password: PATRONSAINTS). A general presale is set for June 28 at 10 a.m. ET.
(Jeff Tweedy, Sydney 2007)
“Put yer good money on the sunrise”
(Tim Rogers)
(Jeff Tweedy, Sydney 2007)
“Put yer good money on the sunrise”
(Tim Rogers)
This one is pretty damn cool:
(Jeff Tweedy, Sydney 2007)
“Put yer good money on the sunrise”
(Tim Rogers)