Musicians Rally, And Sing, For Hargreaves

Cosmetically, musician Michael “Mick” Hargreaves, who was viciously attacked with a crowbar as he was leaving a gig at Grey Horse Tavern in Bayport on July 31, looks just as he ever did. The bruises and black eyes are gone.

But shortly after the assault, which landed the Southamptonite in Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center in East Patchogue with a fractured skull and no health insurance, Mr. Hargreaves whistled a tune before feeling the painful consequences.

“I quickly realized that wasn’t too smart,” he said during a telephone interview last week. “I felt a little twinge of pain in my head. I haven’t whistled since.”

Except for in his imagination, the 39-year-old singer, bassist, guitar, harmonica and piano player also has yet to sing, he said. And so, on Friday, September 16, his friends will be doing it for him during a benefit concert in Mr. Hargreaves’s name at the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett. More than two dozen acts will include Gene Casey and the Lone Sharks, Inda Eaton, and Joe Delia, to name a few.

Whether Mr. Hargreaves will take the stage himself

for a song or two will be a game-time decision, he said. The musician is currently recovering at his parents’ home in Coram.

“This is a way for me to hug everyone in the same room in one night,” he said. “It’s odd. As a performer, you want a big packed room of people appreciating your music, affecting them in one way, shape or form. I don’t view this night in that way at all. I run out of words to describe the way this is going to make me feel.”

Doctors are unsure when Mr. Hargreaves will fully recover, the musician reported.

“Nobody’s talking about that yet,” he said. “I’m fine on my feet, but it’s all about what my brain can deal with. My band—Mick Hargreaves & The King Guys—is still together and can’t wait to start rehearsing again. They just know it can’t happen yet until we’re sure my melon is completely together.”

On the night that he was attacked, Mr. Hargreaves was debuting with his band at the Grey Horse. Friend and fellow musician Gene Casey, who had just played a gig in Sayville, stopped by the bar and played a number with Mr. Hargreaves’s band.

Mr. Casey said he was stunned when he found out about the attack.

“The next day, the Lone Sharks were playing at a festival on the North Fork and someone approached me asking for the number of a bass player,” he recalled during a telephone interview last week. “He needed a fill-in because his had been assaulted. I couldn’t believe his answer when I asked who it was.”

Mr. Casey came to learn that at about 3:45 a.m., a homeless man, Jalaluddin Khojandi, had assaulted Mr. Hargreaves with a crowbar. Immediately after the assault, Mr. Hargreaves was rushed by the Patchogue Community Ambulance to Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center in East Patchogue.

Earlier in the day before the Bayport gig, musician Joe Delia of The Thieves had been songwriting with Mr. Hargreaves at his home in Montauk.

“The phone rang early Sunday,” Mr. Delia recalled during a telephone interview last week. “I saw his ID come up. So I picked up and said, ‘Hey Mick,’ but I heard his sister’s voice. I just had a sinking feeling that something was wrong. Luckily, it wasn’t the worst, but it was pretty close.”

Mr. Hargreaves was treated for a fractured skull and two large lacerations in his head, which were stapled shut. Miraculously, the multi-talented musician’s hands were unscathed. But the rest of the local musical community is still pretty shaken up by what happened to Mr. Hargreaves.

“It was a really very haunting feeling,” Mr. Casey said. “And there’s this unspoken feeling. A lot of musicians don’t have insurance. By and large, musicians work gig to gig. We all know how scary it is if one day you break your finger and can’t work. There’s no compensation. This is a guy who’s missing work because he got attacked.”

Through local fundraising and an effort on Facebook, $3,500 has been raised for Mr. Hargreaves to date, according to concert organizer Laura Perrotti. She said she hopes to bring in at least $5,000 from the concert, which will be put toward Mr. Hargreaves’s medical expenses and loss of income, which are expected to exceed $50,000.

The concert will be a seamless production spanning three and a half hours, explained musical director Randolph A. Hudson III, who plans on performing if time allows.

“It’s really about peace and love and happiness,” Mr. Hudson said during a telephone interview last week. “Mick really feels badly that this could happen to anybody and we all feel the same way. We’re going to do him proud.”

Mr. Casey is closing the show with a 30- to 40-minute set, chock-full with crowd favorites, he said.

“I think they want us to rock the house,” Mr. Casey said with a laugh. “It won’t be the sensitive singer-songwriter set. It’s going to be us kicking and flailing away. By this time of night, people will be wanting to party.

“But this is not the beautiful people. It’s not the wealthy people,” he continued. “This is the no-collar who are assembling to show support and to give a couple bucks to get Mick through.”

“Benefit Concert for Mick East: A Night of Song, Support and Celebration,” will be held on Friday, September 16, from 7 to 10:30 p.m. at The Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett. Confirmed performers include: Caroline Doctorow, Randolph Hudson, Inda Eaton, Gene Casey, Joe & PJ Delia, Telly, Alfredo Merat, Chris Butler, Matty Liot, Tali “Icepack” Jackson, Dalton Portella, Sarah Conway, Michael Weiskopf, Anthony Liberatore, James Benard, Tom Muse and Abigail Levin of Jettykoon and Jim Turner.

Minimum admission is $20 and will benefit Mick Hargreaves’s recovery. Additional donations can be made on the “Mick Hargreaves Recovery Fund” Facebook page. For additional information, contact Laura Perrotti at (631) 553-3112 or lperrotti@optonline.net.

Additionally, on September 18, friends, family, fellow musicians and fans will similarly gather for a “Mick West: A Night of Song, Support and Celebration” concert at the Moose Hall in Huntington, New York. The concert will run from 3 to 8 p.m. For more information, on “Mick West,” call 553-3112 or contact Heidy Ryan at (504) 621-4404 or email her at heidy@americanhitnetwork.com.