‘The Neon Man and Me’ Soundtrack release features former, current VCU students

From a stage production to a PBS special, Slash Coleman will release the soundtrack to his one-man show, “The Neon Man and Me,” this Friday at the Crossroads Arts Center at 7 p.m. Two VCU students and three alumni contributed their musical talents to the soundtrack.

The soundtrack release is another step in Coleman’s goal to make “The Neon Man and Me” a Broadway production. The show – based on the death of his best friend Mark Jamison, who was electrocuted while hanging a neon sign in 2004 – will begin another tour this April. This time, however, it will be more than just Coleman and his acoustic guitar-other musicians will be joining him as well.

“This is the fourth year of the tour,” Coleman said. “We’ll add even more members (and) make a mini-orchestra.”

Jonathan Wheelock, a music major, played bass on the single “Old Virginia,” and will join Coleman on the Virginia leg of the tour. Wheelock said Coleman approached the musicians involved in the soundtrack with a raw acoustic guitar sound for them to add their own parts to.

Movement program graduate student, Becca Bernard (who also directed the PBS special) played cello on “Dear Friend” and “Prayer for a Neon Cowboy.” Bernard, who had a symphony background and originally planned to study music performance instead of theater, said the recording process was a unique experience for her.

“I left the recording kind of shaking a little,” Bernard said. “I haven’t been that concentrated playing an instrument in a really long time.”

Samson Trinh, a jazz studies alumnus, played saxophone and helped arrange “Old Virginia.” Trinhsaid he normally goes into the studio as a producer and arranger, but didn’t have to this time as the musicians arranged their own parts.

“We are good musicians,” Trinh said. “All of us communicated very well.”

Another VCU alumnus, Forrest Young, played drums on all the songs. His goal was to make the songs sound different using various percussive timbres.

“I came up with the initial drum parts,” Young said. “(I was) just improvising based on what Slash was doing rhythmically on the guitar.”

Frank Coleman, also a VCU graduate, engineered and arranged songs on the album and played various instruments. Frank Coleman first met Slash Coleman when he was hired to work on audio for the PBS special. Frank Coleman said they were originally going to record “Old Virginia” with a band and keep the rest of the songs acoustic. They liked the band arrangement of “Old Virginia” so much, however, they decided to add the band element to every song.
Young said he enjoyed working for Slash Coleman because he has never seen anyone dedicate so much time and energy to portray a friend’s life.

“It always gets to me,” Young said. “I’ve got three different versions . I can watch on TV and I never get tired of it.”