September 8^th marks three years since Justin’s death.  I have long since accepted the fact that as a father the pain of losing a son at age 17 will never lessen.  So this anniversary, as always, is a difficult time for me and our family. While these feelings will never change other things associated with our work to honor Justin’s memory give me reason to feel encouraged; And I know that Justin is having a positive impact on the world even though he is not physically with us.

For one, I am encouraged that our mission to honor Justin’s legacy has brought about positive change for many of the young, talented musical teens who I have come to refer to as Justin’s “perpetual peers.”  For many of these young people, simply being involved in the organized music programs available to them in their schools is not enough.  They, like Justin, march to the beat of a slightly different drummer and sometimes those drum beats are not heard by the right people. They can become frustrated if they see no outlet for their talent.  

This is why I have been determined to steadfastly honor Justin in a way that both celebrates his musical contributions as well as provide help and encouragement to those who would follow in his footsteps.  That’s why we created The Justin Veatch Fund.   

Developing and carrying out The Fund’s mission has been a slow, steady process.  For three years in a row we have awarded an annual music scholarship for graduating high school seniors planning to study music.  We are hopeful that we can soon expand the scholarships in size and number.  We have also  begun to reach out with specific programs aimed at these talented young people.  It started when the Yorktown Teen Center asked us to share in the sponsorship of monthly open mic nights.  From there, it evolved into summer music workshops.  And this week, we will realize a dream that has been a goal in the back of my mind for the past three years:  To make it possible for talented local teens to perform on a big stage in front of a large audience as an opening act for a headline professional act.  I am convinced that this could be a life-changing experience for some.

Lastly, I have begun to come to grips with the delicate process of speaking directly to teens about what happened to Justin.  “A Message from Justin” is a multi media presentation that tells Justin’s story and how young people can better take care of themselves.  I began by speaking to 8th graders in two New Jersey school districts last spring and will resume the talks closer to home this fall. It has not been easy but it’s part of the obligation I feel as Justin’s father to pass along the wisdom, and hopefully the inspiration, that Justin left for others…his “perpetual peers.”

In December, I embraced a new challenge as it was time to act on The Justin Veatch Fund’s stated mission to foster new, emerging talent.   After being contacted by The Yorktown Teen  Center, we decided a good place to start was to produce and co-sponsor open mic nights with The Teen Center to give young people in our area a chance to perform in a quality setting.  We scouted the best room available at the Yorktown Community Center, pulled out of retirement the PA system Justin had used for his performances, invested in a third mic, a few stands and a floor monitor and we had a sound system that could facilitate quality performances by local teen talent.

As in the movie “Field of Dreams” that talent emerged with no coaxing.  The great line “Build it and they will come” resonated loud and clear.  In the first four of six scheduled open mic nights we had attracted an attendance of nearly 500 to support nearly 40 performers.  This work is ongoing and I am convinced that some who pass through these doors will go on to become successful artists.

And then there is another part of our mission that leaves me challenged on a personal level, to address the issue of substance abuse among young people. We struggle with what happened to Justin, our well rounded, vibrant, talented, athletic and loving son whose music we felt would someday fill stadiums.  My wife, Marina, and I told our story on ABC TV’s Good Morning America but we still don’t have good answers.  But we do have a message:  The organized efforts and programs that our schools have put in place are inadequate by themselves to deal with an epidemic that has placed so many families in turmoil and taken far too many young lives.

I try to remain optimistic that through the music that becomes the soundtrack of our lives we can harness the inspiration that Justin shared with us to celebrate and reward musical talent while being vigilant over things that can destroy it. We live in a world where many young people travel in the fast lane proving themselves at warp speed while, at the same time, sampling the “comfort foods” their parents may have unintentionally introduced them to. As Justin had suggested in one of his lyrics, we sometimes “need to slow down…to give us a chance to make things better”.  Maybe parents need to be better listeners and our young people better teachers. I have learned volumes from Justin.

I’d like to take a moment to wish everyone a happy new year, offer a brief review of 2009 and preview what’s to come with The Justin Veatch Fund.

For the Veatch family everything was a year of firsts framed by the fact that Justin was no longer with us.  January 5th would have been Justin’s 18^th birthday and our difficult day was brightened when nearly 30 of his friends came to wish us well and reminisce about Justin along with us.  Over the year there were many other smaller visits and, rest assured, they all meant a lot to us.  In June we appeared on ABC TV’s Good Morning America to tell Justin’s story.  It wasn’t easy for us but we got a lot of support from parents and siblings around the country who had experienced similar tragedies.  A high point in the year was marked by Polyvinyl Records’ decision to distribute CD project “Permagrin: The Music of Justin Veatch by The Ivoryton Piano Factory and Friends”.  And on September 8^th, the first anniversary of Justin’s death, a group of close friends and supporters gathered with us to hike up Turkey Mountain at sunset, light candles and reflect on Justin while listening to the entire 14 tracks on the CD.

 This was also a year of non-stop work to build The Justin Veatch Fund. In February our application for 501 (c) 3 non-profit status was approved by the IRS. Our website www.thejustinveatchfund.org saw vast improvement under the artful direction of Julie Duquet.  Julie, in fact, had done so much for The Fund the board of directors unanimously approved her nomination to become our 8^th member of the board. An additional stream of revenue was established through the marketing of Fund merchandise.  Since awarding our first scholarship last June we have now begun to establish a community presence by sponsoring events for young musical artists. There are many we want to thank:

IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY

• Polyvinyl Records
• West West Side Music
• The Sun Room Studios, Dan Coutant
• Top of the World Studios, Art Halperin
• Pandora Radio

PERFORMING ARTISTS

• Anthony Melillo
• Caterpillars
• Hard Calibers
• Moving Mountains
• Owen (Mike Kinsella)
• Stay Home
• The Bensen-Scott Big Band, Jeff Whalen
• Venicius Cantuaria

MEDIA

• The Journal News           
• The North County News
• Alternative Press
• Alternative Music News
• WFUV
• The Peak, Chris Bro-Next Music
• ABC Radio Networks
• ABC Television’s Good Morning America

WEB DESIGN AND PUBLIC RELATIONS

• Duquet and Lo Multimedia
• ByAndreas Design
• The Rodi Company

COMMUNITY

• The Yorktown Teen Center
• The Jefferson Valley Mall
• First Presbyterian Church

LOCAL BUSINESSES

• Captain Video
• La Panache Salon
• Mitchell’s Country Café
• Underhill Road Shell Service Station
• The Westchester Road Runner
• Yorktown Pharmacy

 While we have spent significant resources producing our first CD and developing merchandise like The Justin Veatch Fund tee-shirts and hoodie sweatshirts the investment is paying off and continues to provide revenue so we can fulfill our mission. 

• Our scholarship will be presented in June and may be expanded.
• Our outreach will continue to sponsor open mic events giving local performers a chance to display their talents in a professional forum.
• Our goal event for 2010 is to create a music seminar for young artists to become involved with established artists and participate in a first-rate show in a professional venue. 

To those who have supported us, we thank you.  To those who haven’t but would like to there are several ways to help.  Simply buying a CD, tee-shirt or sweatshirt helps us raise money for what we’re doing.  You can also help by simply sending a check to The Justin Veatch Fund or by Paypal through our website www.thejustinveatchfund.org. 

I recently exchanged emails with a young man from England who caught our attention in a photo in which he displayed the entire lyrics of Justin’s song “ESRT Page 14” in a tattoo on his rib cage. When I asked why he decided to put this indelible message on his body, this was his response: 

 “I got the lyrics tattooed because I love telling people about Justin’s music, his life and how he sadly passed away…and also because I’ve been struggling a bit with drugs this last year after some things went wrong in my life.  Since having the lyrics tattooed on me it has helped me so, so much with this and is a constant reminder to look after myself!” 

The inspiration from Justin’s music continues to amaze us in many ways! 

Peace and love to all,

Jeffrey Veatch

Fortunately, Justin had done a lot of recording.  Sometimes we were treated to an actual real-time recording of his voice as he practiced his craft.  The numerous tracks that often made little sense in their singular parts had tremendous impact when played back together.  There were so many times we were totally amazed by this musical evolution that we were beginning to take them for granted. We were, indeed, tremendously grateful for the recordings he left us and determined to share that music with the world by releasing a full-length CD of his work. 

The CD project became my personal passion. First I needed to know exactly what Justin had left us.  The crash of his Macbook hard drive, which turned out to be a total loss, didn’t help.  But his backup drive and even his iPod held a few full-resolution files.  I managed to find about a dozen new songs.   One of those, “Whispering Spirits”, had been completely finished and mixed by Justin himself.  We had never heard this song in it’s finished state and it was an emotionally charged moment of discovery for me. Another song, “Broken Angel”, was complete with session files containing all the tracks.  But it needed some remixing.  Four other songs had already been recorded by Justin and mastered in professional studios. In January we enlisted the help of our friend, Art Halperin, whose Yorktown studio uses the same production software Justin had recorded in.  Art not only remixed “Broken Angel” but he brought it to a new level with a few of is own additions. And so I had six completely finished songs which I considered a great start but not yet enough for a full length CD.

That brought me to the next phase of my vision, to include ”covers”, the ultimate complement to an artist by  his peers.  This was not an easy task. My first approach was to reach out to the artists that Justin had emulated.  One of the first to come to mind was Owen, the stage name for Mike Kinsella from Chicago.  Justin had collected Mike’s CDs and gone to several of his shows but had never formally met him.   I was not very hopeful when I first emailed Mike and pointed him to Justin’s MySpace page where samples of  his music were available for listening.  Much to my surprise, Mike emailed back on the same day.  Having listened to five of Justin’s songs Mike offered to be on the CD and picked “ESRT Page 14″ as the song he wanted to cover.  This gave me great encouragement to press on.  Then, I approached Greg Dunn of Moving Mountain’s about covering “Can’t Afford the Color” and he agreed immediately, saying it had become one of his favorite songs. While I failed to accomplish the same result with several other of Justin’s favorite artists we were approached out of the blue by others.  Jeff Davis, a founding member of Boy’s Night Out in Toronto, had heard Justin’s story and wanted to be a part of the CD.  It turns out some of the songs recorded by Boys Night Out were among Justin’s favorites. The result of Jeff’s effort was Hard Caliber’s version of “ESRT Page 14″.  I was also approached by bands from Florida and Texas which resulted in covers of “Jersey City Homecoming” and “Whispering Spirits”.  All the while, I had been speaking with Justin’s elementary music teacher, Jeff Whalen, an accomplished professional musician, about the possibility of arranging an instrumental jazz version of “Can’t Afford the Color” .  The result is a nifty jazz version recorded by the 20-piece Bensen-Scott Big Band in Mt. Kisco in April featuring a fantastic solo by Jeff on the alto sax.  Brazilian jazz artist Vinicius Cantuaria, who had met Justin and was impressed with his music, translated “Clean” into “Onda Pura” which he recorded in May.  And last but not least Justin was honored by classmate Anthony Melillo who recorded “Justin’s Song” which he wrote just after Justin’s death and performed at his memorial service.  With the originals, covers and a bonus track I had assembled 14 songs, a generous number for the compilation. 

The result of all this work is “Permagrin: The Music of Justin Veatch by The Ivoryton Piano Factory and Friends”. Permagrin is a name Justin had wanted to use for the title of his first album. That album, albeit different from Justin’s original plans, became a reality.  But there was one more step in fulfilling Justin’s goal.  While we had planned to release “Permagrin” on our own, self distribution would have left us with a tremendous challenge to reach a national audience.  It was suggested we approach Mike’s record label, Polyvinyl Records, an Illinois company which distributes Owen and other well known indie groups.  It took a month to hear back but the answer was a resounding “yes”. So, on September 22nd, ”Permagrin’s” release date, Justin will become a Polyvinyl  recording artist, and the goal Justin had hand-sewn onto his graduation pillow will at last be fulfilled.  And there may be more to this story yet to follow.  Polyvinyl has expressed interest in the unfinished songs that Justin left behind, yet another affirmation of the quality of Justin’s work.  We are proud of you, Justin. 

Justin was an extraordinary musician as well as a loving son, brother and friend.  His death in his sleep from an accidental drug overdose is something we could never envision happening.  Not to us and not to any family friends.  Justin was educated about drugs in DARE and wore the double x drug-free symbol ”straight edge” as he performed with his first band, The Warsaw Pact at age 13.  But things changed, as with most teens, as his life got more complicated.  Justin wasn’t satsfied with the teachings of  “just say no” and, much to our horror, developed a fondness for experimenting with drugs.  He was educated about them but when he crossed the line from outside observer to user he  became extremely vulnerable. We may never know why he crossed that line.

We shared our story with the public on ABC’s Good Morning America, on WCBS News Radio 880 in New York and on other outlets. In doing so, we were prepared for the worst.  But instead of an angry backlash of criticism there was an outpouring of love. We recieved messages of support and thanks from all over the country and messages of hope that sharing our experience would help prevent the loss of more young lives. 

A musician from Atlanta spoke about his fear that his two brothers would meet the same fate.  Mothers from Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts wrote about the deaths of their son’s under similar circumstances.  A poet from Maryland said she hoped his story would help others and that Justin’s music “resonates like a pearl blossom dancing upon the hot breath of the wind”.  A preacher from Indiana said he was making Justin’s story the theme of his next Sunday sermon.  A woman from Texas wanted to purchase tee-shirts for her 17 year old son’s marching band.  A colleague at ABC News in Washington wrote “I’m so humbled by your strength.  I hope the fact that millions of people have been similary touched by Justin’s story and his music gives solace.  Whispering Spirits now has a permenant home on my ipod.”  And on, and on.  I was also reminded of a poignent email exchange I had a few months ago with a 17 year old musician in Ontario, Canada who had fallen in love with Justin’s music and finally got the nerve to ask me directly what exactly happened to him.  When I told him in blunt terms his reply was a message I hope all teens will listen to:  “With teens nowadays, almost everyone’s mentality is I don’t care what YOU say, I’ll find out for MYSELF.  This story will change my life.  I’ll never touch drugs ever again.  I guess the best thing to do is to just face people with the strait truth, kind of like the way you just said to me.  Being 17 myself I know what it’s like. Thank you.”

And thank YOU, one and all.

We had been determined to present our inaugural award to a member of Justin’s graduating class and we were thrilled that we did.  Because our recipient, Stephen Graniero, not only turned out to be extremely qualified based on our criteria but was sort of a musical soul mate of Justin’s.  Steve had been one of Justin’s most important friends since middle school and their parallels in music gave them a strong bond.  Steve’s primary instruments are drums and percussion but he also plays trumpet, bass, guitar and piano.  His former music teacher, Jeff Whalen,  who worked with Steve in the high school jazz band where he played percussion and drums called him “an artist and creative soul in every way, a great drummer who plays with vision like a sculptor, molding artistic ideas into reality”.  But an artist in music also has to be a good player in life.  Of Steve’s character Mr. Whalen had this to say: “He really is a unique young man whose optimistic character always shines through.”  Band director Emily Kluga agreed saying, “Steve is a kind, thoughtful, and genuine young man who I think embodies the spirit of this scholarship.”  Of Steve’s musical ability Mrs. Kluga said this: ”Steve is a very gifted and well rounded musician who demonstrates an invaluable skill-set that is rare at the high school level.” 

In receiving the $1,000 award, Steve had this reaction:  “Justin was a very close friend of mine. He was one of he most incredible musicians I’ve ever known and have had the priviledge to play with.  Justin was one of the most unique individuals I’ve ever met.  I would like to thank the Veatch family for all their kindness. I am both lucky and proud to know such a decent and respectable people.  I plan on using this scholarship to strengthen my abilities as a musician in every way possible. I am deeply honored to accept this award and couldn’t be more grateful.” 

Steve plans to attend Purchase College, State University of New York in the fall.  We wish him the best and know he will do well and feel priviledged that he had been a good friend of Justin’s.

We have made requests for covers of Justin’s songs but we have also received spontaneous offers to record new versions of his songs.  The first song to be recorded, “ESRT Page 14″ by Chicago based Mike Kinsella under his stage name “OWEN”,  has brought national notoriety to Justin’s song writing abilities.  The song,  posted on Mike’s myspace page (www.myspace.com/mybandowen) has already recieved more than 31,000 plays and has tripled traffic to Justin’s myspace site (www.myspace.com/theivorytonpianofactory) which will likely have more than 100,000 plays by Easter.  “OWEN’s” cover and at least six others will be placed alongside Justin’s original recordings of six of his songs in a tribute CD that will be distributed nationally to benefit the fund.  Other groups who have agreed to come onboard include members of Toronto-based “Boys Night Out”,    Westchester-based “Moving Mountains”, Orlando-based “Breathing Chemistry” and others. It will be an eclectic mix that will include an instrumental arrangement of “Can’t Afford the Color”  by Yorktown musician and teacher Jeff Whalen performed by the Bensen-Scott Big Band, a 20 piece New York jazz ensemble, and a Brazilian jazz versin of “Clean” by Brazilian singer/songwriter/performer Vinicius Cantuaria. 

What a wonderful statement about Justin’s musical legacy!  And that brings me back to the mission itself.  Sharing Justin’s music will not only provide inspiration and thousands of smiles, it will “give back” to those just starting out.  Our first scholarship to be awarded this June in Yorktown will be a modest $1,000. But with your help and the help of the music community at large we hope to grow the fund exponentially to provide larger and perhaps multiple stipends in the years to come and also create programs to help enable young performing artists to emerge. 

Peace and love to one and all!

Jeffrey Veatch, Justin’s father