(in which i ask for your money)

My life is a circle.

Eons ago, a young, wide-eyed would-be trumpet (later euphonium) player went door to door bugging his neighbors to buy overpriced candy, cheese, sausage, and god only knows what else. He sent the order form to work with his dad. He whipped it out at church. He hit up every sucker he could for what amounted to donations for the band.

And here he is again, only this time I am ditching the candy and using the intertubes.

I play in a group called the Scene of the Crime Rovers. We are a roving band composed of musicians of all skill levels and all ages, open to anyone and everyone that wants to join us. We play at no charge* at community events (sometimes whether they want us to or not). We are Triangle famous (infamous?) but now, we are looking to branch out.

We've been invited to play at HONK Fest in Somerville, MA this October. What is HONK? Basically, it's a big festival of bands just like us. And getting there is going to be expensive.

Look, lots of us vaguely resemble grownups with real jobs and stuff when we aren't wandering the streets of Durham improvising, and we can get ourselves to Boston and back, but quite a few of our membership are full-time students or do noble (if not lucrative) things like work for non-profits. I'm here on their behalf.

Also, if you live in or around Durham, in exchange for a donation, I am prepared to promise that we WON'T show up in your front yard at 3AM one night.

OK, I'm kidding about that last part (maybe). But seriously, if you'd like to put a few bucks towards supporting fun-loving, open-source and open-access arts in the community, please visit this page and hit the "Donate" button.

I can't give you all the disclaimers about tax-deductible non-profit blah blah blah (though we are working on that) but I promise that this Paypal account is legit (I've donated to it myself already) and the guy running it is really, really honest. 100% of the proceeds (less Paypal's cut) will go to defer travel costs for our members that need the most help.

Thanks.


*In the interest of full disclosure we have done the (very) occasional paying gig; all of that money goes back into the band and really, it isn't very much. Nobody's quitting their day job for 1/20 cut of $100.