If you doubt music’s power to console, the case of Cara Joy Clausen may persuade you otherwise. Stricken with stage IV ocular melanoma that’s spread to her liver and lungs, the 38-year-old Seattle music lover became the subject of a benefit show for which she was asked to name her dream bill. She listed long-dormant post-punk legends A Frames (Seattle’s greatest rock group of the ’00s), rowdy garage-punks the Spits, and pop-punk spark plugs Scared of Chaka.
When the latter band’s drummer broke his foot about two weeks before the July 15 show, organizers needed to find a replacement act ASAP. Clausen received the news while undergoing her weekly experimental cancer treatment in Philadelphia. Scheming big, Clausen thought of ex–Modern Lovers frontman Jonathan Richman to replace them…
