LIFEbeat:The Music Industry Fights AIDS

LIFEbeat's Tour Outreach Program, Lilith Fair, July 20, 1997. From left: Colleen Hoy, Chantal Uscher, Sarah Hodge, Cassandra Hodge (all from AIDS Rochester) and Kristina Mand (from LIFEbeat).

LIFEbeat's AFTERparty series with the Murmers. Left to Right: Tim Rosta (Executive Director), Leisha Hailey, Heather Grody and Gillian Murphy (Program Director)

LIFEbeat's Hearts & Voices Program, Roosevelt Hospital, September 28, 1997. From the Left: Richard Barone (performer), Jean Dawson (patient), JillSobule (performer).

Gillian Murphy is troubled and it shows as she pulls off her glasses to rub her eyes. She has just received a phone call from a troubled young man somewhere in the midwest who was looking for a sympathetic ear. She isn't even sure how the young man found LIFEbeat, and she's worried she couldn't help the shaky voice at the other end of the line. The caller hung up before Murphy could give him information she felt might help him deal with his current situation. Though LIFEbeat isn't a crisis helpline, it does help hundreds in need every year. LIFEbeat, the Music Industry Fights AIDS, was founded in 1982 by Bob Caviano, a music industry producer and daniel glass, a music industry veteran. it became the music industry's response to the AIDS crisis. a not-for-profit AIDS resource and awareness organization, LIFEbeat is dedicated to mobilizing the talent of the music industry to provide grants to many community-based AIDS organizations and members of the music industry who are living with HIV/AIDS, as well as finding new ways to disseminate important AIDS information.

The Gift of Music

A few days later in the residents' lounge at Rivington House, a long-term care facility for people with AIDS located on Manhattan's Lower East Side, Stuttering John of the Howard Stern Show is also concerned. He nervously checks his equipment and jokes with his bassist. He's uncomfortable because he's not sure how the residents of Rivington House will react to the dark and cynical humor of his songs. He feels something more upbeat might be in order, but Paris Brown, the volunteer project leader of the Hearts and Voices program at Rivington House, assures him his audience will appreciate whatever he plays.

Each Tuesday wheelchairs are crowded against chairs and 20 to 30 of the 219 residents come to the lounge for performances by musicians involved in Hearts and Voices, a LIFEbeat program that eases the isolation and suffering of hospitalized people with AIDS through live entertainment. Since the program's inception, hundreds of volunteers have performed every day in Manhattan hospitals and health care facilities.

Since every room at Rivington House is private there isn't the same kind of mingling before the show as there is in other facilities, but that doesn't dissuade Erika Gomez, who saw a LIFEbeat ad on television and became a volunteer. "The reason I come here is that I find the patient's response to the music so inspirational and like the residents I love to come here to hear the music as well." Paris Brown, an aspiring singer who has been with LIFEbeat for two-and-a-half years agrees. She began to volunteer because she had relatives that died of AIDS and wanted to help others with the disease. "It was something I had to do and I've found the whole experience very uplifting -- the music and the volunteering."

There's a palpable excitement in the air as the room slowly begins to fill. When Stuttering John begins to play it's obvious his concerns were unfounded. People start to nod their heads to the music's beat and laugh at his raspy voice and such bawdy lyrics as "[M]aking love to a lawyer is like shootin' yourself in the balls." His scathing wit has captured his audience's imagination, and by the end of the set everyone has joined in to sing a rowdy version of "Louie, Louie."

"As corny as this sounds," admits a man who had just sung songs that would have made Howard Stern and his band of merry pranksters proud, "if I can just cheer one person up and make a small difference, then I'm happy."

Corny or not, musicians like Stuttering John make a very real difference in thousands of people's lives every year. Sharon, one of the residents at Rivington House says, "It gives people such a lift." Gillian Murphy acknowledges that the Hearts and Voices program has even had an effect on her life. Murphy, the program director of LIFEbeat, once accompanied a group of volunteers to a performance at St. Clare's Secure Unit, where Betty Buckley was scheduled to sing that evening. She admits she only knew of Buckley as the mother in the TV program Eight is Enough. "And then she opened her mouth and I thought 'Damn! This girl can sing!' I was really moved and I realized that if music could affect me this way than it must be wonderful for someone suffering in a hospital."

Fundraising Through Rock

But Hearts and Voices isn't the only way LIFEbeat reaches out to the community. The organization sponsors such hip events as SkateAlD and BoardAID, pledge fundraisers appealing to in-line skaters and snow and skate boarders. The fundraisers were established to benefit teens living with HIV/AIDS and to educate young people about HIV prevention. Both events feature bands with adolescent appeal like A Tribe Called Quest, Porno for Pyros and Seven Year Bitch, who pump out thrash and rock as participants fly over city streets and down mountainsides.

Since young people are the majority of concert goers, LIFEbeat strives to provide information that may change a young person's life. Murphy acknowledges that reaching an adolescent audience is one of LIFEbeat's aims.A lot of what we try to do is make out image accessible., interesting and cool to adolescents, who in my mind may range anywhere from 13 to 25 years old." Through their use of funky graphics and easy-to-understand, down-to-earth language, LIFEbeat may be starting to change the way teenagers look at HIV/AIDS transmission. Frank discussions of safe sex in its pamphlets under the title On the Down Low... -- where honey, jelly and powdered sugar are discussed as "toppings" to disguise the taste of latex -- attempt to appeal to kids who may never receive this kind of information at their schools, from their parents or their friends.

One of the organization's more hands-on approaches is Tour Outreach, a program where artists allow LIFEbeat to set up a table while they perform on tour. Staffed by LIFEbeat volunteers and representatives from local AIDS organizations, these tables are places where concert goers with questions about HIV/AIDS can get answers, advice, referrals and free condoms. The H.O.R.D.E., Lillith Fair and Lolapalooza tours, as well as hundreds of other individual musician's concerts around the country, have provided a perfect venue to reach adolescents.

Carrying on Bob Caviano's dream isn't easy, but LIFEbeat has always managed to sponsor innovative, profitable -- and most importantly -- fun fundraisers. Among other events that LIFEbeat sponsors is CounterAID, a week-long fundraiser that brings the music industry and retail record industries together. Customers are asked to round their purchases up to the next dollar amount with the difference going to LIFEbeat. Big-name musicians are often on hand to sign autographs, meet fans and promote AIDS awareness. AFTERparty is another way LIFEbeat has found to hop on the bandwagon -- sponsoring parties at clubs and restaurants after concerts and inviting fans to meet the artists provides revenue for the organization, information for the party-goers, and fun for everyone.

LIFEbeat's focus on adolescents is apparent even in its funding. Though LIFEbeat donates money to many AIDS projects, many of the organizations that receive grants are devoted to adolescents with AIDS. The grants are provided to organizations on a national level based on need and include the San Diego Youth and Community Services and Metro Teen AlDs among many others, including more broad-based groups as God's Love We Deliver, the Los Angeles Free Clinic, and Positive Health Project.

The Birth of LIFEbeat

LIFEbeat not only supports the community that supports it; it reaches out to the community that created it as well. Bob Caviano, a gay man who died of complications caused by AIDS in 1992, once wrote: "The music industry (and we are a community) is long overdue in responding to the AIDS epidemic... Unfortunately, some of our best people have been infected. Many people (e.g., managers, agents and consultants, singing artists and musicians, road crews, graphic designers, producers, mixers) have absolutely no health coverage. I would, like to call on everyone in the music industry to organize a foundation to offer basic assistance and advice on how to obtain essential services... " Caviano's dreams were realized and LIFEbeat was born, providing not only assistance to the larger community but personal assistance to members of the music community as well.

And Its Continuing Mission

Caviano believed it was important to try to preserve the music community, because the void AIDS created would grow to be overwhelming. His foresight in creating LIFEbeat has helped in the ensuing years to provide support, aid, and assistance to a world that has become overwhelmed by AIDS. Through the dedication of volunteers, music industry members and LIFEbeat staffers the organization has kept true to its mission: that until the day that the AIDS crisis ends, it will help those who are fighting for their lives so they will be around for the cure.

Though undaunted in supporting the fight against AIDS, LIFEbeat finds itself in a precarious position. "And on top of everything else," says Gillian Murphy, laughingly but with a note of desperation, "We need an office. EMI Records, which has been nice enough to donate space, is leaving and we're going to find ourselves homeless quite soon."

Just one more thing for her to worry about.

Back to the February 1998 Issue of Body Positive Magazine.