This is my web page. It is mostly a scrapbook type place where I put stuff related to my music and little old me. If you don’t know me, mostly, I play music online in a virtual environment, and am working on writing and recording music. It’s a slow process for me. :-) As the site evolves, there will be more music info on here...
So I’ve been re-focused on working on writing and recording music the past week.
I think I’ve said before one of the hardest things about it is just breaking the inertia of ‘not’ doing it. Not recording is very easy.
If you are reading this, I’ve met you through music. And because of you I now have the confidence and desire to write and record stuff. If I hadn’t started playing music online, my guitar would probably still be in the closet with the strings rusting, where it sat for a decade.
So I’m off to the man-cave now. Wish me luck. Will keep you informed. Thanks for the help.
I’ve been asked to be a guest judge on this week’s edition of Knob Idol. I’ve been told i need to make a few ‘human interest’ and informational videos about Canada to fulfill my guest judge role. Here is the first one.
I had told people that i would put up a video of me transferring the money to MSF, so here it is. Nothing exciting, just there for transparency.
There is a gratuitous quick tour of the man cave in the first minute if you’d like to see it.
Between Friday, Jan 15 and Wednesday jan 20th, people contributed 1270 Can$ to Doctors without Borders. I played 6 shows during that time, and Nad Gough, Damian Carbenell, Shamanes, JellyJellyJelly Benelli and Montian Gilruth each played a show with donations directed through me.
I wanted to re-thank everyone involved. Firstly everyone who donated .. from 20L to 25000L, I really felt people did what they could.
It started out just wanted to do something, and wanting to make sure any money raised went to the proper places. So I decided to donate any lindens I had, as well as any tips received for the next few shows.
Then LilJamie Lewsey got involved. She wanted to do something, and with the help of the good folks at Club Yana they donated over 20 000L.
Then Robin Roar wanted to do something. She lined up Nad Gough and Damian Carbenell. They each played a show at LC Live with proceeds going to MSF.
Then Bree Birke wanted to get involved. She had planned to donate any tips from the shows at Nitida Ridge on Wednesday to disaster releif in Haiti. There was already a kiosque for the Red Cross there, but she wanted to know if she could put the sign for MSF there as well, in case anyone preferred one over the other.
Shamanes, JellyJellyJelly Bennelli, and Montian Gilruth donated any tips received to one of these charities.
And once again… lots of people gave. If I thought no one cared, I’d list everyone’s name here, but i know that some would prefer their privacy. People gave out of kindness and not for recognition.
Thanks again, and lets keep trying to do what we can.
Total of 302 829L collected from friends in SL for disaster relief in Haiti. Such generosity in the face of such sadness. Will post an updated once the funds get transferred.
More people have been offering to do whatever they can to help, and over the weekend we have increased the total to 186 500L. That is $717 US. I’m told that when you withdraw from SL you can lose up to 6% of it, so Robin and others have taken steps to see if Linden Labs will waive that conversion tax. Hopefully they will, but probably they won’t.
Robin Roar got on board, and she lined up Nad Gough and Damian Carbenell to play at LC Live on Sunday. They did a great job and raised over $300 during their shows. I played there earlier in the day, and also played at the 3 yr anniversary of Sterling Vineyards, where anything that was tipped to myself got added to the total.
I’m doing another show on Tuesday night that i will be donating tips from, and on Wednesday night Bree Birke is doing 3 or 4 hours of music with people being able to donate to Red Cross or Medecins Sans Frontieres. JellyJellyJelly Benelli is going to donate tips from her set to Medecins Sans Frontieres, an there will be another couple of sets that night, and I’m playing at 7pm SLT. Trying to line something up at Mason’s Barn, but hard to synch up schedules.
Hopefully we can try and get the total over 1000US$.
Thanks everyone. I was hoping to do some little thing by donating all my tips from shows.. but everyone has really multiplied it and made it something significant.
Thanks to very kind people, we were able to raise just under 30 000L last night (very roughly $115 US).
But something happened and others wanted to do more. Club Yana is donating their tips from today, and the final total is not in, but it might be almost as much as we raised last night. Thanks to LilJamie for starting that ball rolling.
I just received an IM from Robin Roar offering a venue to play, so we booked a show for tomorrow morning at 7am SLT. Then she went to work to see if she could line up others to play after my show. I told her i couldn’t stick around after my set, but she reassured me that she would look after it.
If anyone else wants to be a part and play a set or do anything, please let me know.
I was kind of fighting with myself if i should do anything at all in SL. I figured, just donate to MSF, give what you can, and that’s all you can do.
Then I told myself to do something simple. Donate whatever balance i had in SL, as well as any tips for the next few shows. And encourage others to do what they could, either in or out of SL.
People coming onboard and rolling the ball further wasn’t expected. But I’m very glad it is happening.
I’m going to try and do what i can to help Haiti. As well as donating what I can, and going through my closets for any clothes than can be donated, any tips I receive during shows for the next few days will be donated to Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders).
There are a few connections to Haiti that make me want to do as much as i can and encourage others to do the same.
My Aunt (Mothers twin sister) is a nun who is also a retired elementary school teacher. Since her retirement, she has been traveling to Haiti to help with orphanages and the missions down there. I spoke to her before about Haiti. The poverty and way people go on living was hard for me to fathom before the disaster. Now it is just a nightmare.
Luckily for her, she was not on mission in Haiti when this happened, she was home in Canada.
I have not spoke with her yet, and I’m worried to ask about people she knew , and the children she had been looking after.
RCMP Sgt. Mark Gallagher is someone who i had met here in New Brunswick. He was a friend of a friend and always seemed like a good person. He and his wife were a big part of the communities they lived in.
He was in Haiti helping train local police forces through the UN.
Of the 1400 missing Canadians, he is one of the 4 Canadians confirmed dead.
The last connection that i have is from someone I knew growing up. Dr. Colleen O’Connel was a swim coach when i was younger. I also played basketball with her brother, and know the rest of her family.
She has done a lot of work in Haiti over the years, and has two children adopted from Haiti living with her in New Brunswick. She was in Canada at the time of the quakes, but I’m not sure if she has been in contact with anyone from her orphanage since the quakes.
I’m not certain, but a lot of the work she had done in third world countries was with Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders). Partly for this reason, any money raised will be donated directly to Doctors without Borders (Medecins sans Frontieres). Another reason that donations will be made to them is I believe that doctors and medicine is one of the many vital things needed at this time.
If you have another organization you would prefer to give to, please help as much as you can. And PLEASE make sure that the organizations that you are giving to are reputable and that the highest percentage of money possible makes it to help Haiti.
Here’s a song I recorded with help of Chaos Noyes and Toby Lancaster.
It’s an old Tragically Hip song that i played live with Chaos via relay stream sometime in 2009… hmm.. maybe even 2008. I added the bass and drums later. Toby helped with the drum programming.
Pretty straightforward song – two guitars, bass and drums. I really loved Chaos’ playing on the track, so I wanted to gussy it up a bit, and here it is. Hope you like it!
Just click on the ‘play’ icon to listen. Right click on the song title and ‘Save Target as’ to save.
Poor widdle Mason bwoke his foot. We are assuming it was a skateboard accident, however it could have been a microphone dropped on his foot or something.
But seriously.. please sign the virtual cast here (add a comment to this post) and let’s see if we can get more than 5 signatures….
Next is a cuboid bone degeneration awareness campaign. Fundraiser to follow in SL.
