Fundraising concert keeps late drummer’s light shining

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This article was published 21/04/2023 (1127 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ten Aprils ago, three members of a Winnipeg rock band called the Revival played the type of gig no band ever dreams of playing.

Cradling acoustic guitars on their laps, dressed in black, Jay Jensen, Eric Clefstad and Kevin Hogg strummed the chords to a pair of heart-wrenching rock ballads: Gravedigger by the Dave Matthews Band and Wish You Were Here, by Pink Floyd.

They then transitioned into a song of their own: Stuck in My Head.

“Maybe it’s the music that’s stuck in my head,” they sang to a thousand people, squeezed tightly into church pews. “Maybe it’s the people I’ll never forget.”

It was the most emotional performance of Jensen’s life, because the three-song set came at the funeral of Alex (Dee) Danyliuk, the band’s 22-year-old drummer and “heartbeat,” undoubtedly the most talented musician in the bunch.

Danyliuk was the kind of musician for whom everything clicked. At a middle school parent-teacher conference, Boris and Kirsten Danyliuk asked the music instructor how their son, then playing the trombone, was managing.

“The teacher said he was the only one who could read the music perfectly on the first try,” recalls Boris.

He ditched the trombone for a Pearl drum kit. “He dressed like a drummer,” says Kevin Radomsky, who taught Danyliuk drumming for eight years. “Shorts, tank-top, skate shoes. He was always ready to play.”

Before long, Danyliuk started forming bands. He didn’t have to look far for co-conspirators: Jensen grew up on the same Whyte Ridge block, where the band rehearsed in the Danyliuk family home.

“They’d conveniently show up on Sunday nights right around dinner,” says Boris, laughing. “We watched them grow up.”

Quickly, the Revival started booking gigs across the city and in April 2013, brought in Mike Nash, a producer from Montreal, to develop material for what would have been its debut album.

Inside an Exchange District warehouse, the band members — all in their early 20s — wrote lyrics and drafted melodies. They were supposed to record the songs later that year, says Jensen. They were supposed to do big things together, and had just signed to a label. They lived in a house on Alloway Avenue in Wolseley, where Danyliuk always made sure the rent was paid.

But tragedy struck a week later, when the drummer, who had Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome — a treatable condition accompanied by an accelerated heart rate — collapsed while jogging through Vimy Ridge Park only days after being cleared for exercise by his cardiologist.

“Every time I see my students off, I say, ‘See ya next week,’” says Radomsky, who calls Danyliuk the most talented student he’s ever had. “I couldn’t say that for about five or six years after he passed.

“My world stopped,” he adds.

“That whole year was a blur,” says Jensen.

• • •

But here’s the thing about music: it endures.

And a decade after Danyliuk’s untimely death, the songs the Revival worked on in that Exchange District warehouse are finally being released this weekend at a show at the Pyramid Cabaret.

The album is split into two parts: the first half features the songs Danyliuk co-wrote, including Stuck in My Head, featuring Radomsky filling in for his pupil on the drums. The second half is made up of songs by Bright Righteous, a later iteration of the Revival featuring Scott Beattie, Troy Taylor and Andrew Titley at various points.

Every person who attends the show, Saturday at 8 p.m., will receive a copy of the CD upon entry. Local rockers Show Pony and the Noble Thiefs are also playing the concert, which raises money for music scholarships given out in Alex Danyliuk’s memory. Shorter sets from Travis Maclean, Gary Gach, Curtis Newton, Paddy Barios and Cabu are also scheduled.

Since Danyliuk’s death, his family and friends have organized several benefit concerts like this one, called Keep Shining, named after an early Revival track, raising more than $40,000, says Boris Danyliuk.

Jensen and Hogg, who now live in Los Angeles, where they make music under the name Invisible Friends, flew home earlier this week, and have spent the past few days getting the Pyramid ready for the gig. The Danyliuk family, as always, has been nearby to lend a helping hand.

It will undoubtedly be emotional, says Jensen. “It’s a dedication to him and the ongoing life of this band,” he says.

Radomsky says he thinks about Danyliuk often, even after a decade has gone by. “Of all the students I’ve taught, and I’ve taught thousands, Alex was by far the (best)one. He was going to do whatever he wanted to. He had the talent, the drive, and the right personality.

“This industry can beat you up, but he was the rock. He was just that guy who you could lean on and trust.”

The percussionists playing on Saturday night will sit down behind Danyliuk’s Pearl kit, rolling their drumsticks across his Ludwick “Black Beauty” snare, says Boris Danyliuk.

“Alex was attentive, kind and intelligent,” his father says. “It’s difficult to believe a decade has passed.

“This will be an emotional reunion.”

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com