After battling a short illness, Brian Joseph Hyland has shuffled off this mortal coil. To call Brian just friend would be an understatement. Brian‘s passing conjures up lots of complicated thoughts and feelings. It’s like losing a best friend, big brother, a cool Uncle, a tastemaker, a measuring stick of cool, and the funniest person I’ve ever met, all at once.
This is a self-serving memoir of my life and times with Brian Hyland.
I first met Brian Hyland around the same time I met the band The Necros. I was a little punk rock kid and a friend and I had set up an interview with Necros singer Barry Henssler for our little punk zine. We made our way (dropped off by my Mom because I wasn’t old enough to drive) to Necros singer Barry Henssler’s tiny apartment near the University of Toledo. There I was, in Barry’s living room hanging out trying to act cool and ask cool questions when all of a sudden…BOOM!! the front door blasts open and in rockets this crazy, curly mop-haired, loudmouthed, joke machine. He was wearing this crazy, oversized, Freddy Krueger looking sweater and (what I would find out later to be one of his trademarks) white jeans. He instantly shouts in this crazy, weird, sarcastic, hillbilly accent (which would be another trademark that all of us would steal for decades to come) “WHOAHH!! WHOS RAD STICK?!?!” grabs a skateboard from the corner and promptly starts doing ollies and skate tricks all over Barry’s living room carpet and knocking shit over like a god damned crazed kangaroo! Within the next 15 to 30 seconds, he had flung hilarious insults, jabs, barbs, and jokes at everyone in the room like a ninja throwing joke stars. Barry explained that Hyland was a close friend / roadie with the band, and was also in the band McDonalds. He was like a proxy Necro. Later I made some joke about Hervé Villlechaize a/k/a Tattoo from the TV show Fantasy Island, and Brian’s ears perked up. He laughed (which, as most who know him know, was the highest of compliments) and we instantly became TV nerd friends.
Soon after, I started hanging out with Bri Hy and the Necros almost every day. Brian was just in the process of moving out of his apartment with Necros guitarist Andy Wendler, and into his very own house. The first of the crew to be grown up enough to buy his own digs. The Perth House.
The Perth street house was near UT campus and became THE de facto hangout pad. Brian filled his new basement with awesome, pre-mancave defined stuff. A big ol’ state of the art TV and VCR. Godzilla flicks, Ultraman bootlegs, the SCTV collection, John Carpenter movies, and Miami Vice episodes on rewind/repeat. The TV was never off. The Budweiser never ran out. Japanese toys in every nook, and in the corner…a pinball machine. We lived there. Any band who passed through town with any connection to the Necros crashed at the Perth house. Samhain, Henry Rollins Band, Rights Of The Accused, The Meatmen, Das Damen, you name it, if they were in town they all ended up on the floor. The place became a kind of batshit crazy clubhouse with Brian as the camp counselor. The music never stopped blasting, the movie quotes never slowed down, the Nerf guns never stopped firing. And the jokes never, ever ended. It was like if you skipped a day hanging at the Perth house you missed a whole week of jokes and you had to play catch up. Had to be sharp around Hyland.
Everybody ended up claiming a room at chez Perth. OG Necros roadie and all around hilarian Mike “Monty” Montgomery, early Necros axe man Brian “Felix” Pollock, Necros drummer Todd Swalla, Necros axeman and future Perth house owner Andy Wendler, and a crazy dude named Gary Hull (rip) all called a spare bedroom at Perth home at one point or another. During that time Hyland started a house painting company and recruited Mike, Andy, Felix, and myself as his crew. Hyland bought this little, bright orange, rusty ass Ford Courier he lovingly called “The General” (named after the Duke Boys bright orange General Lee, of course) as a work truck and we’d all pile in, head to a job sight, paint all day, then hot-foot-it over to the our local watering hole the original Ottawa Tavern near UT campus and drink all night. We became regulars at the OT and Hyland’s lovely neighbor Therese was the manager (FREE SUDS!). It became Perth house East. If nobody was at the Perth pad, just head down to the OT. Rinse and repeat for a handful of years.
Around this time I became a Necros roadie. On my first trip to NYC with the Necros, Hyland tagged along. The trip out to NY was more like an Odyssey and became the stuff of legends, and the source of story telling comedy gold. (When we got home I retold the story of the trip to my High School drama class during an “is this story true or fake” acting exercise and nobody believed me!) {this story is quite long and can be told upon request, and usually is any time we’re all together, and the tale always gets taller} I had never been to NYC. When we arrived, THE minute the van parked, we were off! Hyland grabbed my arm and yelled “LET’S GO! FIRST STOP: FORBIDDEN PLANET!” Located near Union Square, Forbidden Planet was the kind of store that Hyland thrived on. Godzilla toys, Universal Monsters swag, Movie Posters, retro candy, Movie T-Shirts you name it. If Hyland WAS a store FP would be it. Later we headed over to Bleeker Bobs records where we saw Will Lee from the David Letterman band (naturally Letterman was another one of our idols and a steady presence of the Perth house TV diet) hanging out in front waiting to get noticed. This was all very impressive to my teenaged self but Hyland, Barry and Andy just laughed at him. Hyland said something mean and snarky to Mr. Lee as we walked in and I think Will’s feelings were a little hurt. Later we ended up getting shitfaced with Sonic Youth and crashing the backstage cardboard wall at CBGB. Brian bought me my first slice of St. Marks pizza and paid for my first NYC cab ride. We staggered around gross/awesome, pre-Disney Times Square. Hyland and Wendler dragged me around the city like a rag doll and gave me the proper tour. We returned home and have retold the stories of glory of that trip ever since.
Perth life rolled on. On one particular Thanksgiving Hyland decided to host his whole family at the house. Brian was the youngest of nine, so that’s a big bite! The Necros were on tour and, while I’d usually go on the road, I was still in high school and stayed home. So, Hyland and I prepared the turkeys, made all the timings, and drank all the beer. We stayed up all night babysitting the turkeys. And of course passed out and overslept. Ha! We woke up to the sound of his sisters (who he lovingly called The Five Horsewomen of the apocalypse ) beating on the door. We got the house in order in a flash and I skedaddled to my own family function looking as bad as you’d expect. Brian took a speed shower and hosted-up like a pro. I thought it was remarkably cool and patently un-punk for Bri to take so much time and effort to host a big family thing. I learned a lot.
Eventually, one day, while sitting on the Perth porch, after a few years of elite level chaos and partying mayhem, Hyland told me it was time for him to go. He was packing it all up and moving out to New York City. This was a total shock, and it blindsided me. It felt like a family member was moving away. Heartbreaking.
Over the ensuing years, our band Five Horse Johnson made a concerted effort to go to New York and play gigs whenever we could. We would always stay with Hyland of course. Every time we’d play we would just end up staying with Brian in his various apartments. We usually didn’t even venture out to the city. We’d all just hang out at his place, tell the same old jokes and stories, pound beers and just laugh. And laugh. It was always so much cooler to hang with Hyland and his roommates like Butch and later Kenny, than it was to make the NYC scene. By then he was working at S.I.R. (Studio Instrument Rental) and was hanging with rockstars daily. He met most of his idols, and he’d call to tell us the details. “DUDES, AC/DC was in this week!” or “I had to dig around Keith Richards personal guitar closet today” the Hyland myth grew and grew.
Eventually, he met the love of his life, a red haired, Texas bombshell bartender named Sharon who worked at his favorite Ottawa Tavern replacement - a tiny dump called Johnny’s. On one of our visits to NY he took us to the bar to meet her. We thought he was making shit up. Way, WAY out of his league. But it was legit.
They fell in love and from then on it was going to NYC to visit “The Hylands”. A bunch of us even drove out to NY in our rock van to help them move in to their first apartment together. A four story walk-up, no elevator?! EF YOU HYLANDS! haha!
They got hitched in New Braunfels, Texas at famed Gruene hall. Our band had the honor of playing the event. Of course Hyland got married to the sweetest babe on Earth, in the coolest venue on Earth. Surrounded by the coolest friends. It was the event of the decade. That was his way. Always cooler than most. Natch.
After many years, Brian left S.I.R. and somehow found an even cooler gig working for NBC News Field Operations. He traveled the world and was on-site firsthand for almost every major political, and newsworthy world event for 20 years. He’d text us from Russia, Bagdad, Paris, Omaha, wherever. He worked every Olympics and was even on the Macy’s Thanksgiving day parade crew every year (thus even impressing my at that time10 year-old kid) of course. I will yadda yadda past the fact that on a work trip Hyland suffered a major brain aneurysm that almost got him, but it missed. This was scary shit, but Brian was pretty nonplussed about the whole thing and carried on a few weeks later with a metal plug in his pate. Over the following years a small group of us have kept in touch via a years-long, free jazz style text thread. Check-ins and fart jokes from all over the globe. We made every effort to get together in person when schedules align so we could tell the same jokes, which, by now are seasoned and perfected like classic songs.
Hyland wasn't a punker. He wasn’t a hipster. He wasn’t a “cool guy”. He wasn’t a musician. He was the product of growing up in rural Genoa, Ohio and hanging out with his feisty, tough siblings, and hilarious parents (Brian contended that his Mom was the funniest person he knew, and he was probably right) riding Scramblers, snow mobiles and mini bikes, and listening to Aerosmith. A kid who ended up taking a shine to punk rock and tangentially meeting the local punk band the Necros at a Godzilla film festival in Maumee, Ohio. A kid who’d eventually grow up and influence, and positively corrupt a whole gaggle of others. Me, very much included.
There are so many stories, and memories, and stolen jokes, and laughs that I couldn’t even begin to write them all down. (Perth house veteran Dave K recently reminded us that Brian once made him laugh so hard while waiting for a train in Grand Central Station that he shit his pants)
These are just my memories and memoirs about Hyland. There is so much I’m leaving out, forgetting or just plain don’t have space for. All this is to say that these are just MY memories but I know my relationship with Brian wasn’t unique. The influence he had on so many others is incalculable and that’s their stories to tell. And I hope they do.
So, hoist a Budweiser to Hyland. A dude who meant so much to so many. The only man to own a white leather biker jacket autographed by both Seka AND Richard Petty. A dude who could quote any movie or SCTV episode verbatim—literally any. A cat who routinely gifted us 20 rolls of gaffer tape on every visit home. A chap who would go to any length for a joke - (sitting at the bar at Chicago’s Liar’s Club, staring at the hands of the Misfits Crimson Ghost clock behind the bar and eagerly waiting until the hands to hit 10:10pm because it made a crazy French C Ghost mustache just so he could stop the bar dead in its tracks and yell in a Cleuseau-style, French accent: “ZOOT ALURES!! AHH BOO!! WHO ARE YOU TO NOT BE AFRAID OF ME?!?!” EVERY hour for HOURS…or…sitting in a crowded bar in NYC sitting next to a guy and his giant dog, and every time that dog barked “WOOOF!” immediately shouting “THERE IT IS!!” Baha Men style with the accomplished intent of enraging the other patrons and thus executing his patented bad joke recipe of “Repeat until beaten” - spring to mind) - and a charter member of the F-DOG (Fat Drunk Ohio Guy - ™Hyland) club. A man who by all accounts was one of the funniest, wisest, coolest people to stride this planet. A dude who taught all of us how to be cool, but was always just a little cooler than all of us.
Thanks for everything, Hyland. I’ll always miss you, always.
-E