Jeff From Upstairs is a project started by my brother Paul. It was the combination of him and his acoustic guitar that delivered a thunderous blow of dynamics, but he always welcomed the opportunity to play these songs with a full band. Some of these songs were recorded and produced with full instrumentation by our teacher, Signals Music Studio, and released under the “Bangerz E.P.” on Soundcloud. I helped out with bass guitar on one or two songs with recording, but that was all Paul, Signals, and Jeff Schwertfeger (aka BeardStank).
Charlie Petralia and I have been doing a Jeff-From-Upstairs tribute since 2022. I knew I could handle Paul’s vocals and acoustic guitar parts, but I also knew Charlie would make those leads so much cooler.
When Paul passed away in 2019, it was devastating for the people who knew him and knew the battle with addiction he had fought for the last 10 years of his life. It led him and our family down an insane road, but the virtue he had gained had made him one of the most interesting people I’ve ever known. I can’t make excuses for his relapse, but I know he was trying his absolute hardest to keep it together for those last couple of years for his family, his music and his life.
After the service and clearing out his things, I ended up hanging on to Paul’s acoustic guitar. I wrote a LOT of music on it, and thought of my brother with every note I played. But the thing is that kept me from doing a lot of stupid things in my grieving process. Music has always been my favorite form of therapy because of the meditative state I can get into when I’m listening to it or creating it. I remember the day after Paul passed I was driving with my friend and we pulled up to his house so he could run inside. A song came on, I can’t remember which one, but it hit my brain the right way and I was jamming out so hard to that song, to the point where the world and all my sadness just melted away. So much, in fact, that when my friend’s partner came out to the car to give her condolences for my loss, it actually took me a couple of seconds to come back to reality and realize why she had even come out to the car.
If there’s a tool out there that’s that powerful AND not a synthetic substance AND it’s able to take away intense grief like that for even just a little bit, then we should be promoting this much more.
Last year we made the Pauly Starfox Birthday Bash a benefit show in which we raised about $1500 for the BREAK, Warp Corps, and Live4Lali in support of harm reduction and substance-use awareness. This year we’re excited to announce that in addition to raising money for Live4Lali, this year’s Pauly Starfox Birthday Bash will be raising money in support of the BREAK’s Soundwaves Music Program: Soundwaves is a program run through the BREAK that gives members to four free music lessons. This has been an incredibly helpful tool for our youth and also for the families of our community facing income challenges who wish to give their children new opportunities. This program is essentially Paul’s legacy and my family’s way of keeping his spirit alive in the community. Paul had such a huge appreciation for being a part of family and community, so we’re always thinking of ways to grow and expand Soundwaves to better serve our local music scene.
One of the many ways we’d like to use Soundwaves to aid aspiring musicians and bands is to raise money for what we’re currently calling the Pauly Starfox Band Silver and Gold Ring Scholarships. This would be an application that bands in our area can fill out to receive what is essentially a grant towards their band fund. We envision this money going towards:
- Logo design if needed
- Band merch (shirts from Warp Corps, stickers from Sticky Brand, etc.) to sell at shows
- Recording and mixing with Park Street Studios in Elgin
- A gift certificate to Pearl Street Music in McHenry for new updated gear
- Upload music to Spotify, Apple Music, etc.
This could be incredibly helpful to aspiring bands as the world continues to get more expensive. Gaining success in music can be a huge challenge unless you pour your blood, sweat and tears into it. Even then, there’s no guarantees. As the next generation comes into the music scene, I would love to see less and less of them sacrificing their passion and gift of talent – maybe even their therapy if they’re like me – because they can’t afford it.
Starting a band is expensive and time-consuming. We believe this scholarship could be an encouragement towards harm reduction in our community that creates more motivation in youth to pursue their goals. When life gets crazy, and it always does, it’s easy to put your passion on the back burner. We don’t want that. We want young musicians to have a reason to keep playing, creating and chasing something that brings them joy.
With your help on September 19th at Mackey’s Hideout, we can bring this grant to life and keep Paul’s legacy going by helping upcoming bands leave their mark on our community.
Pauly Starfox Birthday Bash IV: Come for the music, stay for the mission!
Paul Napholz is Immortal 