writes us about an upcoming event he is participating in to raise money for Sweet Relief, an organization that provides assistance to all types of career musicians who are struggling to make ends meet while facing illness, disability, or age-related problems. Starting this Saturday at 9 am EST on his website Dobbs will be writing nonstop every 30 minutes for 24 hours
A number of bands have donated MP3s to be posted alongside the marathon blogs. This includes an unreleased or rare stuff from The Constantines, Bob Wiseman, My Morning Jacket, Mike Watt, Alex Lukashevsky of Deep Dark United, the Bellrays and more. Click below for the full scoop. Visit VsDobbs this Saturday to check it all out.
Beginning Saturday at 9 a.m. (est) I will start writing and not stop until 9 a.m. Sunday. My progress will be posted to my web site (www.vsdobbs.com) every 30 minutes. I will be doing this to raise money for Sweet Relief (sweetrelief.org), an organization that provides financial assistance to musicians of all kinds for medical expenses, alternative therapies, treatment for alcohol or chemical dependency, prescriptions, and living expenses if the artist is unable to work. Sweet Relief also has a new financial assistance program especially for retired or semi-retired older musicians, which helps pay living expenses.
I will be doing it as part of the 2003 Blogathon (www.blogathon.org).
Why would this interest you and your readers?
Because the project is music-related, I approached a number of my favorite bands and asked them to donate a music track (as mp3). My plan is to post these tracks along with the writingâ-sort of as a soundtrack for my words.
So far, Iâve had a great response with a bunch of superb bands surrendering some excellent music. A few of the tracks will be heard for the first time during the marathon; others are out of print or rare b-sides; the remainder are previously released songs. (For instance, MMJ's track is from their forthcoming CD; Constantines is an unreleased track from a recent recording session; Bob Wiseman's "3 Men" is unreleased and, in my opinion, rates among the best work he's ever done; Mike Watt's was "just" recorded… etc.)
I have different agreements with the artists so some of the mp3s will stay up only for the duration of the marathon. Others will remain online indefinitely, along with the writing piece.
For a (mostly) up-to-date list of bands involved, please check out http://www.vsdobbs.com/ (I also just got a confirmation from Alex Lukashevsky (member of Deep Dark United and owner of Kosher Rock Records), who is not on that list. He plans to donate a solo track.)
Readers are also able to follow a link through that site in order to sponsor me for the marathon. During last yearâs âthon I raised us$500 for Covenant House, an organization that helps homeless youth.
Unfortunately, I only found out on Sunday that I was going to be involved in the Blogathon (I was supposed to be out of town). This explains why youâre getting this so late. I hope to have confirmations from other bands by late Thursday, so if youâre planning on posting this to the news section of your site, you may want to wait till that update. I just thought I should let you know about the event as soon as I could. (If you tell me when you're deadline is for Friday's site update, I can get back to you by then with the latest list.)
If you have any questions about the event, please send them along.
Thanks,
dobbs