It's so hard to take

Troubling news from an SST legend

I have sad news to share. SPOT, the legendary in-house producer who helped define the SST sound, has had a difficult holiday season. He produced a diverse array of records—from Black Flag and the Stains to the Meat Puppets and Hüsker Dü.

Joe Carducci posted this on the SST Records Artists Video Audio and Picture Group page on Facebook last night: 

“SPOT has been on oxygen since pulmonary fibrosis got to his lungs over a year ago. He is in line for a lung transplant and was preparing to move to better post-op housing when he had a stroke two weeks ago. He was recovering from that when he had to be re-intubated when another clot formed, this time in the lung. Spot is breathing on his own again, with oxygen. He's off sedation and able to communicate by nodding and even said a word or two. I visited him today, Tuesday, and took this photo. He's listening to bad hospital music piped in. Perhaps sending a note to him via his spotinator.com contact page won't jam up his phone or inbox while he can't tend to his messages. He's improving quickly and perhaps will be back in gear soon.”

As longtime readers of Message from the Underworld know, my mother suffered from pulmonary fibrosis. It’s a progressive disease for which there is no cure. Scar tissue builds up in the lungs, making it harder to breathe without assistance. For my mother, the early years of her disease were manageable. She had a portable oxygen tank that she used when she went shopping or attended painting workshops. When that was no longer getting the job done, she graduated to an oxygen machine that severely curtailed her mobility. She could no longer drive or leave the house and her world got very small.

The lungs aren’t the only organ that require oxygen. When there isn’t enough oxygen in the blood it can cause organ damage, which can lead to a host of other issues like cardiac arrest, which was eventually what happened to my mother when she transitioned in September 2021.

My favorite painting my mother made from a photo I took in Galway 30 years ago.

Joe is encouraging friends and fans to send SPOT a note through his website contact page. If the music that SPOT had a hand in making—either as a musician or behind the scenes—moved you, I encourage you to send him a message now. Not next week. Not tomorrow. But right now.

On Monday night, a football player went into cardiac arrest and had to be resuscitated on the field. He’s currently in the hospital in a medically induced coma. His name is a Damar Hamlin and his situation is very much up in the air. If an elite athlete can be taken down, what hope do the rest of us have with our broken bodies?

We use our broken bodies to make music, produce art, write books. We use our broken bodies to forge relationships, build bonds, make families. We use our broken bodies to love each other and lift each other up and leave the world a little better than when we came into it. SPOT did his part; let’s do ours by showing him our appreciation and support.

When I talked to SPOT for Corporate Rock Sucks, he told me one of his favorite albums he worked on for SST was The Dicks Kill from the Heart, which I love a little bit more every time I listen to it.