Denis Laing is my father, who was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, and who passed away at a young 65 in April 2017. He was a prolific and poignant songwriter his whole life, always in bands, always writing songs. When we were little, he’d write them in the bathroom, which I suppose was the one room we couldn’t bother him. Later, he wrote under the lanai in our Florida back yard, lyrics in capital letters on big yellow legal pads, guitar in hand.
When my mother brought him to the United States with my baby older brother in tow, they were first in her hometown of Milwaukee. There, he had a stellar power-pop band called The RPMs. They released just one double-sided single on vinyl, with an entire album recorded on tape. He was playing a gig with them the night I was born – don’t worry, the nurses called the bar and he made it there just in time. But, two kids meant finding a better job, and we followed one down to Florida before The RPMs released the rest of their material.
In Florida, he still played music, every day that I can recall. He was also still always in bands. In Florida, almost no one cares about original music (still), so his options were Jimmy Buffet covers or country-western. He did a little of both, but mainly he was in country bands, playing out 3 nights a week. He’d eat dinner with us, all duded up in his boots and cowboy hat, his gear already loaded in the van. He’d scarf the grub, kiss us on the head goodnight, and go off to rock in some club.
He also was always writing, songs and otherwise. Sometimes I’d sing for him. Sometimes he’d be on the piano, most times the guitar. He had an extremely unique voice, they way he spoke as well as the style of his thinking and expression. There are lots of memories I could share.
But the two I want to share in this moment are: The Denis Laing Anthology, and, The RPM’s
The Denis Laing Anthology
My dad fought a heroic 1.5 year battle with Stage 3 pancreatic cancer. He lasted so long because of his positive attitude and will, I am sure. He did a little chemo, then decided never again on that, and we worked on a dozen alternative treatments. I’d moved back home to spend whatever time I had left with him, and it was a gift that he was well enough that we could spend so much time together. I learned a lot from him, about writing bridges, and how a song isn’t really done until you can play a version of it acoustically only. Maybe his most important lesson for me was about using songwriting as a tool to understand and express my own big emotions. Amazingly, he was well enough from his alternative treatments and positive outlook that at one point he was working every day, and playing gigs with his country band or doing open mics with me at night.
Of course, that was just a momentary blessing. Ultimately, the cancer did what it was going to do.
We decided, for various reasons, to replant ourselves in Portland, OR, where my brother lives with his little kids. It was there that we reached the end of the list of things that could be done, and hospice was the only thing left.
This is where the anthology comes in.
My father always said he was not afraid to die, but that he was in sorrow over having to ‘miss the party’ – the party that is the rest of all of us spending time together in the future, in whatever way that would take shape. We set about writing his life story, and he made an amazing small book called The Rooms that is beautiful, poignant, wise… sad… all the things. It seemed to help him feel more ready to go, to have penned it all.
Then, we decided we ought to record all those songs he’d been writing in the backyard, in the bathroom, all these years. He never even officially recorded his very first song that he ever wrote at 18. They were all just there in his brain, and if we did not record them, they’d simply be gone.
So, I ordered a little equipment to our AirBnB where we were doing in-home hospice, and set about the project, recording 30 songs from his literal death bed. Me in my headphones, him with a guitar and the mic on an adjustable hospital table.
We organized them all into small albums, Have I Told You Lately, Fags and Matches, and Put You To Sleep. We wrote down all the lyrics. We made an anthology.
This especially seemed to help him feel… ready to go? Comfortable? Cosmically changed? How can anyone be ready for this transition?? But I can say, it did feel different, once we were finally complete.
Except we weren’t quite. One day, after he’d been in a coma for some time – the kind where you wonder every day if this day would be ‘the one’ – suddenly he came to, and said, “I have one more!”
Quickly, we got all the equipment back out and called my brother. My dad was too weak to play anymore, so he told my brother Ben the chords, and as a trio we did this last song. My dad’s Scottish brogue was pronounced, as if there had been some regression to a former state of being, his childhood closer somehow. The song is called Scrappy Little Johnny, and it is his interpretation of the child lives of John Lennon and other Beatles and how their difficulties led to their music. He gets to the chorus of the song, singing, “I won’t cry when it’s all through. In my life, I found you. I won’t moan when day is done. In my life, you’re the one,” and he cracks, you can hear it in his voice, he cannot go on, he is crying. That is the last song we recorded, and he passed away days later.
So, I present to you The Denis Laing Anthology.
Of note, this experience affected me artistically in many ways, but one important one is a shift in my priorities, towards folding in increasing amounts of creative productivity, all of it if I can some day. I am dedicated to storytelling, my own and the stories of others, through writing and song and art, because each of these stories and songs and artistic moments are like snap shots of our brains. As a neuroscientist who has looked at thousands of brains and analyzed conceptual representations in cortical matter, I know that while anatomy often looks the same, the functional connections are wildly individualized. There is no one in the world who will think just like you do, with all the weird and wonderful and tragic things that have happened to you in your life, shaping your thoughts and memories, talents and creativity. Each song we taped of my dad’s is a snapshot of a particular brain and all the life that went into it. What could be a MORE important thing to capture and share with the world? It’s all I want to do, for the rest of my own time.
THE RPM’s
After my dad’s passing, my brother and I published digitized versions of the other RPM’s songs that existed – both a live album and the recorded unreleased tracks from the early 80’s.
Amazingly, when I awoke the next morning, people were tweeting about it around the world, even in Japan! People were so excited to find that there was MORE music by this little band from Milwaukee, whose single two-song vinyl was being traded around the planet for big bucks.
We struck a deal with Mean Bean Records to press this precious material to vinyl, and while those are all sold out, you can find the remastered tracks also on the Denis Laing Bandcamp: Temporary Satisfaction (Remastered)
In a very cool turn of events, The RPM’s have been featured in a documentary about Milwaukee’s 80’s punk rock scene called Taking the City By Storm, as well as a primo-placement in a documentary about the 1982 Milwaukee Brewers, called Just a Bit Outside. My dad’s song plays in a pivotal moment, right when the city learns they are going to the World Series for the first (and only) time, over a montage of regular everyday people partying in the bars all across the city. COULD IT BE COOLER?!
As well, in 2023, my band Working Breed performed a live tribute show for The RPMs. My brother came to town to join us, and it was actually our first time playing music together in a band setting as adults. It was also my mom’s birthday weekend. Truly, it was an actual celebration of his life, and I am honored my all the amazing musicians I work with who made this special event happen. The video of that performance is below: