The whole story can be found here, but in a nutshell, the house where Serge Bielanko lived with his wife, two children and two dogs, recently burned to the ground. Everyone escaped without injury, but it appears that they lost almost all of their possessions, other than the clothes on their back.
Those of you who read my blog regularly know that I am a huge fan of Marah, and those of you who know me personally probably wish I would just shut the hell up about how awesome I think Marah is. In my more intoxicated moments I have claimed that Marah is better than the Rolling Stones, and further that I would kick the shit out of Keith Richards if he objected to that assertion. In my sober moments, I know that Keith Richards could kick my ass. I drag friends to shows whenever I can, and I even have my young nieces sporting Marah T-Shirts to their elementary school in Texas. They have no idea who or what a Marah is, but they like the T-Shirts.
I do not know Serge personally. I have spoken to him very briefly after some shows and did contact him via Facebook a few years back to tell him how The Dishwasher’s Dream was helping me through a difficult time in my life. He was kind enough to reply back and give me some encouragement, for which I was grateful. That is the extent of any personal contact we have had, but Serge strikes me as a good guy, and this is certainly a shitty situation. If you can spare a few bucks to help Serge and his family, you can find donation information at the link above.* In lieu of donating to the Bielanko family fund, Monica Bielanko suggests a donation to the Red Cross in the names of her kids (Info here).
The Twelve Days of Christmas may be over, but surely there is some leftover generosity among my readers. Yeah, I am looking at both of you skulking in the corner over there. * More beer reviews soon, I promise.
*Naturally, I am too late with this post as they already have closed direct donations to Serge and his family, but you two skulking bastards can still donate to the Red Cross as Monica Bielanko suggested.
[...] The whole story can be found here, but in a nutshell, the house where Serge Bielanko lived with his wife, two children and two dogs, recently burned to the ground. Everyone escaped without injury, but it appears that they lost almost all of their po (Read more…) [...]