Annnd, it's launched!

It is with great pride and pleasure that I announce to you the launch of our Sunday, August 14th event at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, "Guitars for Guts: A Benefit Concert for the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America." Tickets go on sale at noon tomorrow (Thursday, June 16th). Simply click on the link above to purchase tickets!

We have been hard at work organizing this event and are so honored and excited to have Iris and her band, ROADS, coming down from Canada to be our headliners for this show. My brother's band, the alphabets, will be opening for ROADS and we even have another band joining in on the fun, TBA very soon!

As many of you know, this event is one of great personal importance to myself, the alphabets (of which my brother is the lead guitarist and singer), and the members of ROADS band. After nine years of battling Ulcerative Colitis, a debilitating gastrointestinal disease, I was left with no other choice but to have the entirety of my large intestine and rectum removed, a major operation that was not without many complications. I will soon undergo a second surgery to reverse the ileostomy that I was left with after the first procedure. For more about my personal story, please see earlier posts on my blog.

Iris Campo, the drummer and backup singer of ROADS, has a similar story to tell. After being confronted with a life-threatening complication of Ulcerative Colitis, toxic megacolon, Iris was given 2 hours to decide whether to undergo a panproctocolectomy to remove her large intestine and rectum and was told that she would inevitably get peritonitis, a deadly infection of the abdomen, if she did not undergo the procedure. Because Iris was so ill at the time of her first surgery, she was left with no other choice but to undergo three surgeries over the course of six months. Please see Iris' Video Blogs on YouTube.

Iris and myself are just two cases out of the 1 million people that are suffering from Crohn's disease or Ulcerative Colitis in North America today. Mothers are too ill to take care of their children, adolescents are too sick to grow and children and adults alike are confined to their houses or hospital beds for years on end because of these extremely debilitating diseases. Please join us on August 14th to create a night we can all remember and help us in the fight to cure Crohn's and Colitis!

Thank you in advance for your support and we hope to see you in August!