Musician, activist finds Athens a life-giving locale
Jenaye Antonuccio (photo by Sherry DiBari)
June 12, 2008
Imagine you are a buccaneer, a vagabond, or an explorer. You look at maps and choose destinations for the sounds of their names, their position in the state, or what you have heard about them from others.
Pretend you are driving through surprisingly beautiful hills, outcroppings of rock, and endless green trees. The scent in the air is heavy with honeysuckle and rich greenery. Through your open window, you see a sign that says, “Athens, 10 miles.” You stop for directions, and you are told: “Just keep driving that way, and you’ll see it.”
This is similar to what befell Troy Gregorino one summer’s day in 2002. He had developed the keen habit of hopping from one place to another. But then something drew him here and coaxed him to stay.
“I drove in and it felt right,” says Gregorino. “I’d been to Montana, California, Mississippi, New York, all over the place. Me, my little car with eight billion miles on it, whatever number of dollars I managed to scrape together, a guitar, and a suitcase, and I found this place. And I just loved it.” He stepped out of his car, onto the unfamiliar brick streets, and experienced a never-before-felt warmth and welcome.
“Left to fight or flight, everybody’s looking for a new direction….” “Pascagoula,” from the album “Circadian Clocks” by the Jarts
But his path has not been easy. Since he stepped out of his car that long-ago day, he has been arrested, diagnosed, detoured, recorded, unemployed, and cured. His gratitude towards this place comes directly from his brush with having all things taken away. Only two years into his relationship with this town, he was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2004. Two more years stood between the process of healing and his call back to the place he had come to love. His love for the town has not changed, but has enhanced and filled his story of healing. “It’s not in my frame of mind right now to leave Athens,” says Gregorino. “I want to see some things through and continue to be a part of all that called me back.”
“Ohio means beautiful…back to Appalachian hills from which you came, everybody’s leaving just to make it big, rock stars, silver screeners back from the dead…I am your native son…” “Native Son,” by the Jarts
What calls him back in a current practical sense is hosting Open Stage for Donkey Coffee and Espresso, singing and playing guitar in the band the Jarts, tutoring for Kids on Campus, and working for the Ohio Healthy Families Act campaign. But it is the deeper things that strengthen the call. “I tend to find myself drawn to places where political and artistic vibrancy co-exist,” he explains.
It is his relationship with words and music that make up a large portion of Gregorino’s character.
“Writers and artists work so desperately to invent and reinvent new perspectives on the ordinary,” he says. He claims that writing and playing music are separate functions for him, but that he needs both and cannot survive without one or the other.
“Words, at their best, are just approximations of real experience,” says Gregorino. “Ideally they convey something that strikes you beyond a page or beyond a song, but it’s the limitations of them that are engaging enough to bother.”
A degree in journalism from Kent State University landed him many gigs, but around here, the most notable has been his past reporting on the local coffee-house music scene for the Athens Insider. “I think (the Athens music scene) rivals or exceeds any that come to mind across the country that I’ve gotten to see,” he declares. “I would put it up against the best of any city.”
Hosting an open stage allows him to see a broad spectrum of musicians in the Athens music scene, from beginners to those more seasoned.
“There seems to be more inclination among listeners to be there for the music itself,” Gregorino says. “(At Donkey) the sound system is good. I think it’s a great first stage for a lot of people, but it also serves as an ideal stage for people who have already had time to fine-tune their work. It’s a lot of fun to watch their progress happen from week to week.”
He also likes Donkey’s intimacy. “You are not competing with clashing glasses and the sounds that accompany the bar atmosphere,” he observes. “I think it lends itself to a different kind of sensitivity toward the craft.”
He would know. Melding writing and music, Gregorino performs his own songs in the band, The Jarts. Its music is directly linked to his personal recovery.
“I think it was at the core of my motivation for wellness again,” says Gregorino. “For that matter, it was the motivation for the formation of this band.”
The band’s lineup: Gregorino (guitar, vocals), Ashley Ford (cello), Michael Rinaldi-Eichenberg (keyboards), Chris Pyle (bass), and Sam Oches (drums).
“Nobody wants to hear a guy gush about his band too much,” Gregorino admits. “But the formation of The Jarts and what they have offered of themselves personally and musically have just been tremendous for me. This whole experience has been life-affirming.”
The band’s first CD was proudly released at an April 26th Donkey show. “The album reads as a kind of journal or documentary, even if it is rather surreal in parts,” says Gregorino. “We’ve been working on these songs for many months together as a band and playing them over and over again. And I feel like I’m coming up with new realizations about my own words in the song.”
“This year begins and ends in the same old way…Did you think you’d live to see 2042?… In spite of the lines you’re reading across my hands, sun upon your skin is all you understand…” “2042,”by the Jarts
“A lot of things I do on a whim,” Gregorino says. “Politics isn’t one of them.”
Political activism has peppered his life. At Kent, he was arrested at a 2003 annual Commemoration of the 1970 Kent State massacre. The peaceful protest was about the Iraq War, but local authorities pigeon-holed him as the leader of a crowd that was led into a street, he claims.
“My initial ‘guilty’ verdict was overturned by an appellate court,” Gregorino says. “During the trial, officers conceded that I was arrested because I was ‘perceived as a leader’. According to the first amendment, that’s not a crime. Later I was part of a successful federal suit arrest against the city of Kent for wrongful arrest.” All must have been forgiven. He was asked to play Pete Seeger’s “Where Have All The Flowers Gone” at the 2006 Commemoration.
His love for the forests, hills and river feeds his desire for defending and protecting this small town. He ran for City Council at large in last November’s election. Though he was not elected, he came away inspired.
“I was a first-time candidate with no major-party affiliation and next to no budget,” he says. “And I got over 600 votes when the final count was in.”
He says he believes in Athens’ potential and its forward-thinking people.
“I believe we have arrived at a point where we’ve got crucial decisions to make in terms of what kind of legacy we want to hand down to future generations,” he says. “I’m firmly convinced that a proactive push from below can prevent the effects of overdevelopment and economic short-sidedness from sucking the life out of a city. Complacency is our greatest enemy.”
“You’ve stopped conceding and waiting for your miracle, your heart is still beating in plasticine material, radiating through placating you congenially… Despise me, disguise me, these cells keep dividing, the light through the white blinds is so very blinding, I shield my eyes to shield you from me, say to me let’s go where we’re supposed to be…” “Tunnel Vision” by the Jarts
“These are all the upsides of being told that you have to undergo certain treatments or die,” Gregorino says. “This heavily introspective awareness and appreciation all over again. It just feels like gratitude. I’ve gotten a new perspective on my relationship with the world that I wouldn’t have otherwise.”
Athens is now a place now that holds more meaning for him than any other. It permeates his life, influences his healing, and filters into his art.
“I feel fortunate for every day I get to be a part of things where there’s such vitality,” says Gregorino. “I love the pulse and the beat of this place, and all of its liveliness. But I love this place for its paradoxes and contradictions, too. I’ve got to have both and Athens gives you both those things, liveliness and serene quiet all within a very short walk.”
“Other cancer patients and survivors, so many of them seem to have specific memories and recollections of what happened,” says Gregorino. “I’ve got this grey blankness when it comes to pinpointing things.”
He does remember the ceiling, and lacking strength. “I was memorizing every line in the ceiling above me. I was out and out and there were many months where I lacked the strength to even pick up the neck of the guitar and strum it if I wanted to.” His treatments have lessened to only a few times a year, with no recurrences, which he considers to be the best news. For now, he is settled. “There’s always a place to be welcomed in Athens. It does a lot of good things for me and I want to do good things in return.”
“I’m not afraid, I am alive, I’m the shooting star in the red moon sky across the plane…I am alive, I’m breaking through to the other side…” “Red Lament” by the Jarts
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