On Saturday, April 29th starting at 12:30 p.m. Ohio's University of Akron will be Rockin' for Relief  - a charity festival and concert with local artists as well as food and merchandise vendors (family-friendly, so bring the kids!) in which the proceeds will help the ongoing hurricane relief efforts of The American Red Cross.  At the same time, local Ohio musical talent will be battling it out for the opportunity to open for "I Love the 90s" and legitimate DIY artists Blessid Union of Souls headlining that evening.

Those of you in the area have the choice of a variety of tickets here and those of you not in the area can still help out by visiting the The University of Akron donation page and following the instructions contained therein, especially mentioning the Rockin' for Relief tag-line in the memo field of your check.  For some reason that's über-important - don't ask me, I just do as I'm instruccted.

Why am *I* posting this information on the "News" page of my site?  Because a big step is being taken by me on this one: yours truly will be lending his skills on five-string fretted, fretless, and six-string basses from 3:30 - 4:00 with a wide variety of music in an attempt to entertain and hopefully raise some money for a city I loved via literature and cinema yet never got the chance to visit.  Like all things in life this is subject to change, but I'll be prepping about 45 minutes to 1 hour of set-time to play, which will rotate with changes throughout the 5+ hour time period.  The tentative title for this "show" will be Ian Perge's Solo Bass: 16 Strings, 10 Fingers, 2 Semi-Usable Legs, and Hopefully No Clams - a title with more than a few jokes so in they're out and then in again several times over.

The very nature of this frightens me on levels deep and dark.  I've never had the desire to be a "bass soloist," and have written several times at length on how that is not my calling to the instrument.  I still believe so, and I believe it's going to sway how I approach this.  I'm not going to cop a Billy/Stu/"insert your favorite bassist here" show and try out all my music store "lix" - instead, I'm going to work out various single-instrument (i.e. non-overdubbed) arrangements of pieces of music I've written as well as much more famous ones. To see which is called to the fretted, the fretless, the six-string, or the garbage can.  To be musical.  One idea I'd love to do is a medley of "Rock's Most Famous Basslines" and I'll take any and all submissions.  You know how to reach me.

If you do need to speak to me, realize I'll be somewhat busy practicing, arranging, creating sounds, and throwing up in my mouth a little bit during the next 23 days, and therefore may be a bit slow in replying to e-mail.

~Ian, 4/6/06

Afternote: although much can be said about the circumstances of my set (due to various factors both technical and sonic ones completely out of my hands) over $6,400 was raised by the event.  That made it worth it and then some.