This is not your average basement band. The musicians aren’t 17, they’re not just starting out, they definitely do not have any kind of punk hair going on, and they’re not trying to get away from their parents or teachers.
They are the parents. They are the teachers.
Meet the band Meehan Road: Fourth grade teachers Dave Meehan and Patrick Whalen; music and chorus teacher Christopher Tucker (left-to-right in photo); special education teacher Chad Jorgensen; Brian Alvarez, school psychologist; and Jason Meehan, middle school teacher. They are all members of the Schuylerville Teachers Association. They play for fun, for colleagues, and to kick it up for community food banks and youth program fundraising.
They might be on the age 40 bandwidth, but like an adolescent garage band, they’ve had to create a lot from scratch in order to bang out classic rock, Irish music, bluegrass and country.
Jason Meehan, cousin of Dave, is on drums. He started with a base drum petal against a rubber garbage can. A shaker and a tambourine rounded out the percussion section, also played by Jason.
Whalen wanted to join the band a few months after they started. But first he had to learn to improve his guitar playing, so he took lessons from his peers.
“We started early morning across the hall,” he said, nodding to the next classroom. The guys would show up before the first bell of the day and play chords and notes. Strum and stumble. Strum and hum.
“True to being teachers, we used instruments and creativity. We taught each other a lot. That’s our common theme,” said Dave Meehan.
Then met at each other’s houses and played for fun.
Tucker plays bass guitar, and he can also play the sax and the keyboard. He is, after all, a music teacher, something he said he was born to. But right now, he said his main instrument is his voice. The others call him “the glue” of the band.
Meehan Road is the street where they rehearse for gigs – usually in the basement. They started out with light country and folk, with a dash of simple rock. Then they started adding more dance music.
Next they had Meehan Road t-shirts made up. They bought a drum kit. They made a Meehan Road Facebook page.
Jorgensen’s wish was that he wanted to be play in a real show by the time he hit 40 years old. It happened at the Old Saratoga Brewery.
“I was scared to death,” said Whalen.
“We were all scared to death,” Dave Meehan said.
They started practicing every week and getting more serious.
Their first show at a restaurant was on Lake George. Since then, they’ve performed at West Mountain ski area, Willard Mountain ski area, and bars and clubs in Saratoga County.
“I remember thinking after the first handful of songs ‘We can do this,’” said Dave Meehan.
They’ve made different charities the benefactors of their gigs. They have played and raised money for SAFER, the local food bank; Schuyler Park youth programs; and to cover expenses for teacher Jessica Sorbero, a kindergarten teacher who has breast cancer. They want to help the community understand that teachers are thankful for what the community does for them.
“This school is amazing with the amount of charity work,” said Whalen.
“We’ve had a lot of support from our colleagues,” said Dave Meehan.
“We’re really lucky. We’re friends, and we teach close by to each other. It shows the ability of teachers to work with others. That’s our profession. We don’t work alone,” Dave Meehan. “We work with psychologists, and music teachers. Anyone inside the school community, we work with a wide range of people and students all the time, which is nice.”
“We’re bridging the gap between community and school,” said Patrick. “This really does it.”
Some songs they rock out to that might be on your own playlist include: Ho, Hey by the Lumineers, Small Town by John Mellencamp, Midnight Special by Credence Clearwater Revival, Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash and Wild Rover by the Clancy Brothers.