Our 17 year old drummer, Joe Blanks, recently presented his own news report on BBC 2s ‘Newsnight’. In it, he told viewers that he bought an ice cream for £6 in Leicester Square, London, but a child in some developing countries can be fed for a year for less than that amount.
When we do a show we sometimes like to mention that nearly 50% of the world don’t have running water, and that a child dies every 20 seconds from diseases related to drinking dirty water!
If we have people’s attention we like to do a bit more than entertain, though entertaining is pretty high up the agenda, and no one seems to complain that they haven’t been sufficiently entertained, (unless we refuse to go on for the third encore that is.)
The gigs have been going so well lately, and we try to use the platform for good.
"Joe Blanks"
Joe is involved in a Charity called “Mary’s Meals”, that will feed children, but, and it’s a big but, only if they go to school. The UK Conservative leader David Cameron says it’s his favourite charity. The charity is run by volunteers which is why it’s so cheap to feed a child for one year.
Paul (riff king) Poulton also helps with a charity called RSVP who help Rwandan street kids after their parents were killed in the genocide. He ran this year’s London marathon for them, saying to himself, “I hope these Rwandan kids appreciate this”, he was told after he handed them the proceeds that they did in fact truly appreciate it.
Bass Player Ross Lander, doesn’t know much about charities, but plays great bass.
While Ross had a month off for the birth of his first daughter, Oscar South played bass for us. We had some great gigs with Oscar and he’s good fun on stage. He likes charities too, and wants us to take part in the Oxjam gigs on behalf of Oxfam.
"Oscar South"
Didn’t Jesus say something about helping people? Like people will say to him, “when did we ever see you hungry and in rags? You always wear those nice white things Jesus, yeah we’ve seen your picture”. And He will say whatever you did to these kids you did to me.
So if we can, we’d like to help people.
What
In The World Do They Do?