R.I.P.
Mark Breyer

Many of you knew Mark Breyer better than I did, but I had the great and strange fortune of being his neighbor three doors down for the last eight or nine years of his life. We would say hi on the street, and we realized quickly that we had a lot of things in common: a lifelong love of The Kinks, an interest in Eastern mysticism, vegetarianism, and feeling more than a little out of place in the suburbs. I was certain that my wife and I were the only political radicals on our street, only to learn that Mark’s ideas were way farther out there than mine!

Needless to say, I became a huge fan of both Skooshny, and Son of Skooshny, and looked forward to every new release.

We kept in touch until the very end, as his body was being consumed by myeloma, and I visited him a fair number of times at the hospital. I’m not positive, but I think I got to see him recite his last Hare Krishna prayer. On one of the last visits, he said to me in a hoarse, slightly delirious voice: “Go into my apartment, go to the bottom drawer of the shelf beside my bed, there’s lyrics and chords there for a song. I’d like you to finish it.” So, I found the papers, took my guitar to the hospital, and said, “Mark…can you hum the melody to me, if I play the chords?” He was way too tired at that point, and said: “No, you just do it . . .”

So….I came up with the melody and his friends of many years, Jeff Peters and Steve Refling, polished it up with some new parts. Over the past two years Jeff assembled a fantastic gang of Mark’s musician friends and co-conspirators to bring “Threefold Miseries” to you. It’s a jangly, upbeat, poppy song about human suffering. Which I believe sits firmly in the tradition of the Skooshny catalog. Enjoy!

 

Dr. Paul Gailiunas
4 November 2025