Singer dies after stage stunt (1 Viewer)

[7 - No tomorrow]

Not that famous or anything but his hardcore band had just been signed and it sounds like he was a good guy.
Weird story though.

http://www.myspace.com/lastlights

http://www.boston.com/news/local/ma...12/10/death_of_singer_24_tied_to_stage_stunt/

Death of singer, 24, tied to stage stunt
By Peter Schworm, Globe Staff | December 10, 2008
Behind him, his bandmates blasted through a frenetic set. Before him, the college crowd roared. Dominic Mallary, lead singer of an emerging hard-core rock band that had just landed a recording contract, was exactly where he wanted to be.

Near the end of the show at Boston University on Thursday night, the 24-year-old Worcester resident performed his signature move - howling into his microphone as he coiled the wire tighter and tighter around his neck.

But this time, the edgy flourish proved deadly. The pressure caused a clot in his jugular vein, later cutting off the flow of oxygen to his brain, according to his mother, band members, and friends. Mallary, an Emerson College graduate who counseled the homeless, died Friday afternoon at Boston Medical Center.

As part of the act, Mallary had coiled the microphone wire around his neck.

His death stunned his small hometown of Berlin and the region's hard-core music community, which on blogs and message boards remembered Mallary as a gifted and authentic musician who died doing what he lived for.

"He put everything he had into every single performance," said Patrick Murphy, drummer in Mallary's band, Last Lights, and a close friend. "There aren't enough words to do him justice."

Mallary, well known in the Boston area punk-rock scene, loved playing live shows, particularly close-knit "basement shows" with people he knew, Murphy said. Friends and family remembered him as a caring, sensitive spirit who read philosophy and poetry, wrote deeply personal lyrics, and helped drug addicts rebuild their lives.

"He was a Renaissance man," said his older sister, Elaine, who said a book of poems by John Merriman rested on his bedside table.

In the lyrics to "Love + Rent," posted on the band's MySpace page, Mallary wrote:

"There must be something human still left in this being/the lack of meaning is also a meaning/the lack of feeling is also a feeling/but don't press my face to the floor and call it a ceiling."

Mallary appeared fine during and immediately after the show, but about an hour later complained of dizziness and a lack of sensation in his legs. But even as he was taken by ambulance to Boston Medical Center, he remained conscious and called his girlfriend to let her know what had happened.

"I figured he was going to be all right," said Murphy, a 21-year-old who lives in Douglas. "We didn't think it had anything to do with our performance."

But when Mallary arrived at the hospital shortly after 11, he suffered a seizure and lost consciousness, Murphy said. He later fell into an irreversible coma and was pronounced dead Friday.

BU junior Jeanne Mansfield was at the show on Thursday, even dancing next to Mallary later when the main band was playing, more than an hour after his set.

She said that during Last Lights' set, Mallary put the microphone cord around his neck twice but seemed fine afterward. "He had come into the crowd and was just jumping around and moshing with all of us," said Mansfield, 21. "I was next to him for a little while, and he was totally just as animated as everyone else.

At Berlin General Store, where Mallary worked summers throughout high school and college, residents who watched him grow up were distraught over his death, owner Shirley Lowe said.

"Everyone loved Dom," she said. "He was just a phenomenal young man. One of the kindest spirits I've ever encountered."

Joe Jackson worked with Mallary the past year at Greenhouse, a residential program for men suffering from mental illness and substance abuse. Mallary, he said, showed a maturity and strength beyond his years.

"He had a lot of patience and compassion," he said. "He was more interested in helping people than in power and prestige."

Friends said Mallary was fiercely loyal.

"He was always there for all of us," Murphy said. "He never judged anyone, you know what I mean? He was just friends with anyone. He was real genuine."

Mallary's mother, Helen Turano, said her son begged her for a guitar when he was 10 years old. She got him a reconditioned model, and it rarely left his side.

Mallary was elated over the pending record contract and East coast tour, friends and family said. He saw it as the fulfillment of years of hard work and a new beginning.

"He was the happiest I've seen him in a long time," said his stepfather, Pasquale Turano.

Globe correspondent John Guilfoil contributed to this report. Peter Schworm can be reached at [email protected].