Success can come to an artist with the speed of a meteorite, but bad news can be just as devastating. On October 12, in the middle of a tour of North America that had started at the beginning of the month and that was not scheduled to conclude until mid-November, the American musician Matthew Sweet suffered a heart attack that has not only forced him to cancel the rest of his performances. , but has led it to absolute economic ruin overnight. Without medium-term income and with medical bills that are impossible to face for a musician far from his most important days, he has had to urgently ask for help. He needed 400,000 dollars (about 369,000 euros).
Sweet was performing a series of performances as the opening act for the group Hanson when he collapsed. It was hours before the concert in Toronto. Canada has a free public health system, but this advantage does not apply to citizens of countries that lack this service. And he is American. To the costs of medical intervention, medication and hospitalization we would have to add an expensive transfer on a medical plane with two toilets to a recovery center in his city, in Omaha, where he will spend months before returning to a normal life. None of this was viable without that financial injection that has come through a crowdfunding campaign promoted from the GoFundMe platform.
In just four days, nearly 7,000 people have covered the figure. The public response has been immediate and passionate. Like his songs. In the 90s, Matthew Sweet published albums of classic workmanship, bittersweet distortion and lethal melodic aim such as Girlfriend, Altered beast and 100% fun that captivated rock music lovers who couldn’t find anything like that in the grunge of the time. Its furrows radiated streaks of euphoric romanticism like Sick of myself, I’ve been waiting and We’re the same alternating with hyperbolic love ballads like Life without you, I almost forgot and Winona. They are songs straight to the heart, comforting sound pills that 30 years later have activated the generosity of anonymous admirers and the occasional colleague. Names such as Susanna Hoffs (singer of The Bangles with whom Sweet has recorded several cover albums), Ben Gibbard (of Death Cab For Cutie), John Mayer and comedian Judd Apatow appear on the list of donors. Also, a certain Mike Mills who, in all likelihood, is the bassist of REM
It all started with REM
Curiously, Matthew Sweet ended up dedicating himself to music because of REM. After hearing their first single, he went to see them in concert and asked them to sign that vinyl. Eventually, he would move to Athens, attracted by the musical vitality of the city of Michael Stipe and company, and would begin a career there that would take him to live and work in New York and California. His skill with vocal harmonies and electric chords was such that he began to be considered a master of the craft; the typical case of a musician admired by other musicians. During his time in California he became friends with Brian Wilson himself. But the success of their third album, girlfriend (1991), was not repeated no matter how much their two subsequent albums, Altered beast (1993) and 100% fun (1995), treasured as many or more songs full of that classic, very American and sweet brilliance as their last name.
In the last two decades his popularity has decreased considerably, but the memory of his best recordings remains alive among a public that, in the face of an extreme emergency situation, has responded. However, his case is not unique in a country without public healthcare and in which only the most far-sighted musicians take out private insurance. It is not the first time that an American rocker has found himself in a similar situation. Scott McCaughey, guitarist for Young Fresh Fellows and The Minus Five, suffered a heart attack while on tour in 2018. He had renewed his health insurance, but still had to face a series of expenses not included in the policy. In addition to a charity concert that raised 116,000 dollars (107,000 euros), a campaign was activated from the GoFundMe platform to raise 75,000 dollars (69,000 euros) more, which would ultimately be 127,000 (117,000 euros).
McCaughey was surprised by the heart attack while he was on tour with Alejandro Escovedo, a Tejano singer of Mexican origin who in the late 70s shaped a kind of country-punk. Escovedo also saw death up close in 2003, when he collapsed in the middle of a concert due to liver problems. Without health insurance and when crowdfunding portals did not yet exist, the musical community pulled him out of the gutter through charity concerts and a cover album by Escovedo himself. And McCaughey has been a backup guitarist for REM for many years, whose bassist suffered a brain aneurysm during a concert in Switzerland. Any American musician closely knows colleagues who, at some point in their career, have found themselves on the brink of a medical and economic abyss.
A common situation
The REM drummer enjoyed a more than comfortable financial situation in 1995, which allowed him to abandon music after that health problem, but most musicians cannot retire whenever they want. Escovedo, McCaughey and so many others have returned to the road because they know their livelihood is there. Taking a walk through crowdfunding platforms it is easy to find more cases. Barry Goldberg, a pianist since the 1960s who has played with Bob Dylan, Steve Miller and Mike Bloomfield, has been battling cancer for more than a decade. He needs 50,000 dollars (46,000 euros) and in half a year he has only raised 15,000 (13,800 euros). Singer-songwriter Dave Rowe suffered from a strange illness. Or so I thought. He has requested 20,000 dollars (18,000 euros) through a crowdfundingyou have visited yourself, had tests, and discovered that your mysterious stomach problems were caused by a hiatal hernia.
The profession of musician does not always leave enough time to take care of oneself. And if you don’t, when problems accumulate it is much more difficult to face them. Veteran bluesman Popa Chubby’s overweight was evident, but until now he has not decided to leave the stage because that is where his income comes from. It must resolve lumbar ailments, diabetes, cellulite, cardiac dysfunctions and various hernias. Many problems require a lot of money. And if you’re not going to be able to play for a while, you’ll need more money to survive. He is asking for 150,000 dollars (138,000 euros) and has barely added half of it. In this context, Sweet can feel very lucky because the list of musicians asking for help is endless: improvised music pianist Stephen Beresford, violinist Kyleen King, bassist Tony Romeo…
The most dramatic case may be that of singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt. Born in Athens, the REM city to which young Matthew Sweet would move, he lived confined to a wheelchair from the age of 18 and since then he was also financially tied to increasingly expensive medication. A victim of intermittent depression, on Christmas Day 2009 he decided to take his own life to, at the same time, get rid of all the debts and stop being a burden on those around him. Chesnutt had health insurance. Even so, he owed $35,000 (32,000 euros) to the health system and was very aware of the lack of protection in which American musicians lived. REM, Smashing Pumpkins, Garbage and even Madonna recorded their songs for the charity album Sweet relief: Gravity of the situation whose objective was precisely to alleviate the defenselessness of musicians regarding health issues. Matthew Sweet had also contributed years ago to another charity album in the same series, covering singer-songwriter Victoria Williams.
Breaking news
A few hours ago, Russell Carter, Sweet’s manager from whose agency the crowdfunding campaign is being coordinated, issued a statement with the latest news. The rocker is already installed in the Omaha hospital, from which he will not leave, at the earliest, until early December. The next step will be to prepare your home so that you can live there, although it will be difficult for you to return to a normal life before six months or a year. For all these reasons, the amount to be raised to cover all these expenses has risen to 750,000 dollars (694,000 euros). According to the statement, Matthew’s main goal is not only to walk and talk again, but to “play guitar, sing and create art.”
Matthew Sweet has never been a particularly healthy guy. Poor diet has caused digestive problems that he has had to deal with for years. In 2005 he toured Spain and at his Barcelona concert he left the stage several times to go vomit in the dressing room. Even those strange comings and goings did not detract from the impetus and brilliance of a splendid performance. It is too early to know when he will return to the stage, but if he does, it is likely that titles like divine intervention and Reaching out acquire a new dimension. Also the shocking Someone to pull the trigger the one in which he begged for a love that would fill his heart. A heart in which he perceived a hole getting bigger and bigger.
#Musician #Matthew #Sweet #suffers #heart #attack #tour #leads #ruin
