Hopefully by now, you intrepid internet-reading music fans know the story of young Cal Robbins, who was born with Spinal Muscular Atrophy, a motor neuron disease that will keep him in a wheelchair for life. But Cal has been blessed with loving, strong parents, one of whom happens to be a well-respected indie rock musician and producer who goes by the name of J. J’s got some wonderful friends, and they’ve been helping out with auctions, benefit compilations, and shows. One of ‘em featured the reunion of a nearly-forgotten D.C. band, you may have heard about it.
Cal is two years old now, and as wonderful as that is, he’s nowhere near out of the woods. Another auction to benefit him has been announced, and it’s a doozy. On offer are such things as:
-A lesson from impossibly talented ex-Jawbox drummer Zach Barocas
-A fully-autographed set of the Mission of Burma Obliterati pre-release 12″ers
-Not one, but TWO copies of Shellac’s infamous Futurist album. These were donated by two members of Buffalo Tom, who have presumably realised, like everyone who hears this record, it’s not that spectacular and they might as well do something good with it.
-4 DVDs full of footage of Shudder to Think recording their landmark, amazing Pony Express Record (buy the damn thing now, if you haven’t yet for some reason)
and most mindblowingly,
-a copy of Craig Wedren’s handwritten journal from the making of PXR, featuring “of pages of Craig’s handwritten lyrics (including early drafts and unreleased songs!), recording notes, doodles, personal journal entries, and correspondence!”
Now, let’s face it, folks: I probably won’t be able to afford any of that stuff, if it goes for the amount it should. But if one of you has some deep pockets and will make a copy of that Craig Wedren journal for me, I’ll donate everything I can to Cal’s fund. Plus I’ll be your bestest friend.
As a special bonus for reading, here’s an alternate take of “Savory” by Jawbox. Enjoy!
1 Comment »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Comment by hotshotrobot — January 30, 2008 @ 10:22 pm
It was the test pressing of For Your Own Special Sweetheart on vinyl that got one Reno Loner interested. But yeah, holy jesus indeed.