I'm sitting here, stunned.

It was late and I was bored, tired yet not really sleepy. The kids are in bed, so it's a good time to don the headphones and crank the music. It's been a really stressful day and when I'm stressed I turn to Dax. Yes, tonight, I think I'll listen to a little Dax Johnson. Dax is an absolutely incredible pianist that my wife, Chell and I stumbled upon one day in our local shopping mall.

There, in the middle of the mall, his face to an ice cream joint and his back to Sears, was a man that looked straight out of a metal band. He was too tall for the old piano and his knees, crammed beneath the keyboard, looked awkward and painful. He had one foot on the piano's pedals and the second bent out to the side. He played with an odd style completely lost in the emotion of the music, his free hand occasionally playing with the air, seeming to pull even greater emotion from the room to his fingertips. The music was raw, but at the same time it completely transcended what we normally call music. It was as if emotion welled from his soul and somehow miraculously slid through his fingers and the piano directly into the audience without translation. As his body weaved from side to side and his long hair dragged across the keys, feelings erupted from his soul into the room. I suppose a mall isn't the perfect room for a pianist, but it didn't matter to Dax or to the people walking by. Everyone, and I mean everyone stopped to listen. CDs were flying out of a box into people's waiting hands. Everyone wanted a piece of Dax to take home. Between songs, he would pause and autograph a stack of newly purchased CDs, pausing to speak to each new fan, thanking them for listening. Chell and I spoke to him for a bit and his generosity and friendliness proved as powerful as his music.

Later, I bought other albums and downloaded more material from his website. When he expressed an interest in singing, I was a bit apprehensive, but once again, the emotions in his music held the day. His voice might not be perfect, but it didn't matter. Dax's new music made us laugh and made us cry. We felt with him and we felt through him.

So here, tonight, after a stressful day, I come to once again renew my association with Dax. I listen to "Fundamental Elements of Madness" and "Through the Storm". As I listen to "Child's Garden", my heart takes over as it always does. My eyes closed, I can see my children flitting about playing. I see them throw childhood tempers and I see them run to my arms. I hear myself calming them and I hear Dax calming the children in his life. Perhaps I hear the music calming Dax as it calms me.

As the song ends, I realize it's been some time since I've been to Dax's website. I'll check in and see what projects he's working on. As I type in daxjohnson.com, I wonder what I'll see.

JUST RELEASED! Recorded in 2004, The Beauty of Human Error is his first and only - all vocal CD! Dax talked about an all-vocal CD for years, and following his death the parts came in from various places. Dax had spent many hours in the studio years ago and had a lot of useable tracks. In the end, we had eleven songs.

Wait a minute!

following his death… Dax can't be dead. What? How? When? The website mentions a tribute concert, a memorial service, nothing else.

Google...
The Spokane Review
Remembering a creative and passionate musician
Dec 2, 2005
Christopher "Dax" Johnson, 30, died Nov. 23 at the Harbor UCLA Medical Center.

Almost a year. He's been gone almost a year. 30 years old and gone. Gone from this world, gone from my personal world.



...



I suppose he was never really a part of my world, but his music certainly was and will be. Even though I didn't really know Dax at all, having shared but one conversation with him, I'm amazingly moved by his leaving us. I guess I always figured that someday, somewhere, I would see him at another show. I would tell him how much his music has affected me. I would shake his hand, introduce him to my friends, buy another disk and I would listen. I would listen and for a moment, the world would be a better place.



…



I'm still listening to my collection of Dax's work and it's already changed. It's as incredibly powerful and emotional as it ever was, but now it's somehow become… incomplete. He was 23 when he made this album. 23! At 23, he made music that can still make this jaded old man cry. (I'm doing it now) At 30, he was gone. What works of genius were still to come? What pieces of art were trapped in his mind until it was too late? I guess we'll never know. I guess I'll never know. I'll buy this last disk, but it will be the last one, Dax's last disk.

In a way, I almost feel guilty for not knowing about Dax's death for so long. Reading through his myspace page, I find memories of the people the knew him personally. Their grief must have been more tangible than what I feel. They've lost so much more. Still, I must be part of a large group that knew Dax primarily through his music, all of us finding out in our own way, a few today, a few next week, all of us grieving the loss of a part of our own lives. I guess the lesson is to treasure the times we have, not only with those we love, but with the others that influence us, the poets, the artists, the teachers and yes, the musicians. See the live shows, support their efforts financially, tell your friends, buy stuff. Most importantly, tell the artists what effect their work has on you. Thank them.


…



I've changed music now, to Michael Hutchence's unfinished "Slide Away". As Michael, with days to live when he recorded it, sings "I just want to slide away and come alive again", I'm wondering if Dax knew the song. Bono's lines, written and recorded after Michael's death, "I would catch you, catch you as you fall" echo all of our thoughts about Dax. Dax effected many, many people in his life through his music. How many of us would have caught him, had we known he was falling? Would we have noticed? Would he have accepted our hand?

I guess we just never expect the world to change. We adapt to changes in our own lives, big and small, yet somehow we expect the world outside our view to remain static. We expect little kids to stay small, we expect no one will build a store on the vacant lot where our club fort is and we expect the Daxes of the world to go on making ever better music. Yet, sight unseen, the kids always grow up and when we go home, some developer has picked up that lot and built something ugly on it.

And sometimes the last song is played.


…


And now I have to tell Chell.