The BP_TOW  crew lost a good man and a good friend of ours over the weekend with the passing of a high school friend, Kevin Carlberg.

Unfortunately the above is the only youtube clip I could find of his music. Luckily I got a chance to see him live at the Mint about a year after this performance when he was playing some of his solo stuff.

Kevin Carlberg, a vocalist and acoustic guitarist for the band Pseudopod, a band best known for winning Rolling Stone Magazine’s award for the Best College Band in America contest in 2000. The band bested over 1,000 other college bands from across the country to win the award. Kevin himself completed a solo CD with producer Dito Godwin in 2008 and worked numerous celebrity Artists on a “Stand Up 2 Cancer” compilation CD where all proceeds go to fighting cancer.

the following is taken from a UCLA Medical Center article in 2007

Carlberg’s journey to fight cancer was inspired by personal experience. While on tour with Pseudopod in Colorado what was thought to be altitude sickness was diagnosed as a cancerous brain tumor.

Later he learned he had glioblastoma and that his tumor – judging by its size and aggression - was about as bad as it could be. What he didn’t know then, and didn’t want to know, was that most glioblastoma patients live only about a year after diagnosis, even after surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.

Carlberg was transferred to UCLA, where top neurosurgeon Dr. Linda Liau removed the tumor. He underwent radiation and chemotherapy, the conventional therapies to fight his disease. But he also went a step further. In May 2004, he enrolled in a brain cancer vaccine study being led by Liau, a researcher at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. The leading-edge study uses the patient’s tumor to create individualized vaccines based on the tumor’s protein expression profile.

The then 25-year-old received several personalized vaccine injections and hoped the experimental therapy would keep his cancer from coming back. And it has.

Beating the odds, the young man has survived more than three times longer than the average glioblastoma patient treated with conventional therapies. And he’s made good use of that time.

He married his college sweetheart, welcomed a daughter, Lyric, into his life and in 2005, he ran the Los Angeles Marathon, raising money for cancer research at UCLA. He recently completed his first solo CD, a singer-songwriter debut with a bluesy, jazzy feel. Several tracks reflect his experience battling cancer.

Carlberg said enrolling in a clinical trial never gave him pause. He knew the treatment was unproven, but said he was willing to “do anything and everything” to fight his cancer.

“My view was that I had to go in there and kick butt,” he said. “So that’s what I did from square one.”

To monitor for recurrence, Carlberg gets a scan every three months. So far, the scans are clear. He’s cancer free.

“I feel like I can be a good role model for people and maybe a source of inspiration for some,” said Carlberg, who married his wife, Meritt, on Jan. 25, 2003, about two months after his diagnosis. “Through my music, people will know that I have survived and am surviving and I’m spreading the word that way.”

Part of the proceeds from sales of his CD will fund cancer research at UCLA. It’s his way to give back, he said.

“Dr. Liau is my hero,” Carlberg said. “I always felt safe with her. She’s amazing.”

“When you go to the hospital, you see a lot of people who are bummed out. I’m happy and I want to make other people feel happy, too, and know that you can survive this.”His live-in the-now philosophy helps him maintain his sunny demeanor.

“It can be scary when we go in for the scans, but Meritt says we can handle anything if we just take one day at the time,” Carlberg said. “Life is a marathon, and we take it one step at a time.”

UPDATE 8/31/2009: Kevin Carlberg suffered a recurrence of his cancer and, despite treatment, he passed away on Saturday, August 29, 2009. Through his participation in a clinical trial at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, Carlberg lived about four times longer than the average glioblastoma patient. His participation also helped move cancer research forward. We thank him.

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