Here are the other three pieces that Kevin and Booby recorded in Florida during that sublime all-night session in 2000 with his pal and bassist Peter Rogers and the promising young drummer Scott Shad.
Scott’s life ended in tragedy only a few weeks later. I lay out the details in Chapter 5 of NO ONE CARES ABOUT CRAZY PEOPLE:
Kevin’s voice was leaden when he called home in March. Scott Shad, the gifted young drummer who’d sat in on that magical recording session in Jacksonville, was dead. Scott was a diabetes sufferer. On March 6, he’d been caught without a needed dosage of insulin at the worst possible time.
Kevin explained the details in an email:
Subject: hey
Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2001 00:13:12
From: “Kevin Powers” <hoist@hotmail.com>
To: hfleming@adelphia.net, ropo@sover.net
hey guys-
. . . we found out that scott had a free period at school so he went to get a cd and on the way back I guess he had a seizure while he was driving on the highway and went across the lanes and into a building wall.
I’ve never known anyone as well as him who has died so its really weird. its just really really shocking on so many levels. how is dean? give grammy my love and I’ll see you guys in a week or so
Kevin
He wrote another, even more heartfelt letter to the Cleveland novelist, screenwriter, musician and family friend Scott Lax. Scott was among the first to recognize Kevin’s talent, having met him and the family at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference in the 1990s. Scott formed strong bonds with both Dean and Kevin. He wrote to Kev after I had told him of my son’s devastation. Kevin replied:
Hey Scott-
Thanks for writing. Its unbelievable how powerless I felt when it happened. He was such a great guy and so inspirational. I’ve never lost such a close friend before. I think you’d like him-Never once had a negative thing to say all smiles and incredibly modest just an all around good kid. He was a divine talent on the drums. He played in another band that just got signed and has been together since Jr. High. I don’t know what to do I know that I have to be strong but its hard knowing we won’t have a chance to play or just hang out anymore. So it will be hard but I’ll have to cope with it. But memories are everything, he was a happy kid so he had a happy 18 years which is the most important thing.
I hope we can keep in touch and if you have any advice on ways to deal
with this I’d like to hear it,
Kevin
Kevin himself had less than five years to live.