RIP Ed Honeck & Thanks for Having My Back

      Damn, it seems that I have yet to catch up with remembrances, as I need to pause and remember Edward Honeck, the former publisher of Buffalo Night-Life Magazine, the first professional publication for which I wrote and the home for more than 15 years of this attempt at musical opinion and mental clarity, The Hosey Report. Honeck died May 27, 2022.

     I wrote for Buffalo Night-Life Magazine from 1985-2001, originally brought on board by then-editor and author Rick Falkowski. People who read me years ago may recall that I did not exactly hold back on my opinions, good or bad, for bands, clubs, radio stations or promoters in the Buffalo music community. It was thought to be refreshing at first, but of course, when I criticized certain bands, stations, clubs, etc., perceptions of refreshing turned to wrong, stupid, hurtful, uninformed, vile and worse, and calls for my disciplining, up to and including firing, came up frequently and in print, as well as in telephone calls to Honeck and others. NEVER, not once, did Ed come to me and ask me to change my approach or content, change an opinion, kiss anyone’s ass or apologize.

     This includes one of my more famous, infamous or notorious articles and processes. In 1988, Buffalo Night-Life Magazine was hosting the Buffalo Music Awards at Manikin’s on Niagara Falls Boulevard in Tonawanda. As usual, cover bands and tribute bands of all sorts were receiving lots of honors, making lots of nauseating speeches and braying like mules about how good they were for the Buffalo music scene. It’s no surprise that as a more than 5-decade supporter of original Buffalo music, I did not take to this well, including in print. At one point at the ceremonies, Robbie Takac threw a bottle at the podium and speaker and the Goo Goo Dolls were ejected. My article, printed in the December 12, 1988 edition of Night-Life, criticized the awards, radio stations and the entire stinking system in my blustery opinion; the reaction included two weeks of pages of letters on my article (and more trickling in later), some agreeing, many not, some generally opining and several calling for my either reining in or firing; Buck Quigley was kind enough to defend me in print. Buck himself had been tossed off the stage after he had some fun and accepted awards for other bands before handing them to the actual winners and criticizing the actual award concept while accepting the best new music band award for the JackLords.

     While Buffalo Night-Life Magazine was sponsoring the awards, Ed stood by me, never telling me to back down, never threatening my status as a writer for Night-Life and not telling me to apologize or change anything. The incident barely came up again and when it did, after he assured me that Night-Life didn’t lose any readers or advertising from my articles (both good and bad, I suppose), the reaction was raised eyebrows, a hearty laugh from Ed and a shared drink. I left Night-Life over financial considerations, but more than 20 years later, I have one gift Ed gave me, a black hooded sweatshirt with Night-Life sewn on the chest. It’s a great sweatshirt I still wear, but if I didn’t, I’d keep it anyway. Thanks, Ed, and RIP.