GOOD CAUSE MUSIC

My name is Ken and some of you on myspace will already know me from Audio Visual Records and my various music,recording projects and bands over the last 20 something years. Well what is good-cause-music and what is it about? Probably the best way to explain is in the shape of a bit of a story. Hopefully this wont be too long and too boring and will help to explain what i'm trying to do. Ever since the begining of the 1980s i have during my time in various bands and with the formation of my record label been involved with raising funds for good causes. In the early days this would be through gigs and live performance but also through various sponsored events. Late in 1994 after starting to feel ill and run down i discovered to my horror that i had cancer so off i went to the Royal Liverpool Hospital to have a tumour removed (well actually a testicle to be precise) in an operation called a radical orchi ..omy & all seemed well. Unfortunately a few months later the cancer tried to have a second go at me and i was found to have another tumour but this time in my stomach as well as cancer in my lymph glands and shadows on my lungs (time to poo myself and start to get a bit worried me thinks).So this time i went off to Clatterbridge Hospital to start chemotherapy and half a year of being a slap head and throwing up 50 times a day. One of my biggest memories of that time was of the resilience of the children who had cancer (none of this moaning and feeling sorry for themselves like the adults as they just got on with trying to make the best of a bad day). At the time there was lots of talk of having a special facility for children who sadly didn't have a lot of time left and these ideas and dreams eventually came to fruition as Claire House Childrens Hospice (situated next to the hospital). While at hospital i vowed to get more involved in raising funds for such causes as well as other cancer related charities (should i survive that is). Well fortunately i beat this second lot of cancer and in the following couple of years raised money for the Clatterbridge Oncology Centre as well as a centre for orphans in Romania by way of putting on gigs and doing various sponsored events. In the following few years i remarried and had 2 children but continued to do occasional sponsored events but became dissolutioned with music and my record label for several years. Having spent the next several years receiving demos and being asked to manage bands i caught the music bug again after seeing a few really good live bands. In 2004 The Songs From The Riverside album containing mainly Merseyside and North West bands was released and followed in 2005 by One Nation ( see myspace.com/audiovisualrecords for more details). Both of these albums raised money for Hope House Children's Hospice (Shropshire) and Claire House Children's Hospice (Merseyside) together with gigs and events as well as donations to Cancer Research UK and Macmillans Cancer Nurses. Well the story isn't quite finished yet as late in 2006 i suffered a head injury during a severe assault by a patient at the hospital where i work (long story) which has caused me many problems (including fatigue and memory loss) some of which will hopefully improve. Not sure if it was having my head banged so many times but i had one of them (whats it all about) moments when i thought there is so much more can be done with music which is the start of GOODCAUSEMUSIC.