JERRY FUCHS: 1974-2009
“Yadnus”
from the album Myth Takes
2007
iTunes
November 8, 2009:
Gerhardt Fuchs grew up playing the drums in Georgia and went on to perform with bands that toured across the country, but it was in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, that he forged his reputation as a dynamic, driving drummer widely esteemed by his peers.
And it was in that same neighborhood, in the shadow of the Williamsburg Bridge, that Mr. Fuchs, known as Jerry, fell to his death on Sunday morning in the elevator shaft of an industrial building on Berry Street.
“His passing puts an enormous hold on the Brooklyn music scene,” said Jon Fine, a friend of Mr. Fuchs’s and a columnist for Business Week. “The world of independent music has sustained a really significant loss.”
At about 12:30 a.m. Sunday, Mr. Fuchs, 34, who had attended a benefit party on the building’s seventh floor, was stuck on a freight elevator between the fourth and fifth floors, friends and the police said. He had been trying to jump out of the stalled car when his jacket got caught on something, causing him to fall to the bottom of the shaft. Another man, who was not identified by the police, was riding with Mr. Fuchs in the elevator but safely jumped to a fourth floor hallway.
Alex Frankel, Mr. Fuchs’s roommate in Bushwick, who sings with the band Holy Ghost!, said he arrived at the party just before 1 a.m. and heard that somebody had fallen. He peered into the shaft and saw a figure lying face down.
“We flipped him over and it was Jerry,” Mr. Frankel said. “When we found him he was not able to talk.”
Mr. Fuchs was pronounced dead at Bellevue Medical Center.
There is no suspected criminality, the police said. The medical examiner and the Buildings Department are investigating.
Mr. Fuchs grew up in Marietta, Ga., and attended the University of Georgia, in Athens. He moved to New York in 1995 to join Mr. Fine’s band, Vineland. Eventually he played hundreds of shows with other bands, including the Juan MacLean, Turing Machine, !!!, Holy Ghost!, and Maserati.
Mr. Fuchs was known for his adaptability: His signature style could carry a band and inspire imitation.
“He could play metal,” Mr. Fine said. “Prog rock with multiple time signatures, aggressive indie disco.”
Recently, he performed with an electronic band from Toronto, MSTRKRFT, on the Late Show With David Letterman. Friends said that Mr. Fuchs had been preparing for a trip to France.
He earned the admiration of other accomplished musicians, who cited Mr. Fuchs’s combination of skill and humility.
James Murphy, of the musical project LCD Soundsystem, said that Mr. Fuchs was one of the best drummers he had ever heard.
“He was one of the only people we all knew who was literally great at what he did,” Mr. Murphy said. “And he was incredibly generous with his talent.”
On Sunday night, friends, many of them musicians with roots in Williamsburg, gathered in a Brooklyn apartment to exchange memories of Mr. Fuchs and honor his achievements.
“At the root of it,” said Scott DeSimon of Turing Machine during a telephone call from the gathering, “he was always that sweet 20-year-old who moved here from Athens.”