Mental Health Fundraising

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Our Very First CD, with Ralph’s Life!

2014 is off to a mighty fine start for The Fine Line Project and friends, in particular Ralph, rock dog supreme. If you’re new to this blog, Ralph is a Jack Russell whose master Mike runs a popular Indie music blog and a weekly show on Radio Kaos Caribou, also a big supporter of ours. Ralph spent his Christmas and New Year leashed to Twitter, Facebook and an online crowdfunding project to raise money for a CD in aid of mental health charity Rethink Mental Illness. You can read more about that in our last blog, including a full track listing – 40 brilliant artists have donated their sounds to the project.

Ralph Fine Line Project Rethink CD cover

If you haven’t come across a crowdfunder before, it’s basically an all or nothing situation. Either you raise your cash in the allotted time or you don’t get a penny.  So things were a wee bit tense down at Ralph’s kennel on 2 January, as the 11th hour drew in and the money was still short. Thanks to an epic (this is definitely the right word) number of Tweets, including Christmas messages and personal appeals to every single one of some 5000 followers, and a rather sleepless night (we set alarms to follow the action from down South, at least we got some sleep), Mike managed to pull it off at the very last minute, topping his target of £5000 by an extra £120 on 3 January around 9 in the morning.

WOW! £5120 almost all thanks to the power of music and creative people who’ve supported this cause on Twitter, supplemented by a crowd of well wishers from further afield.

Some of that total will be wagging its way straight off to the charity – look  out for a swishy presentation cheque, currently being designed – while the rest will fund the CD and a launch gig in London, with ticket sales once again donated to Rethink.

*** We’ve always maintained that it’s not just about the money – awareness goes hand in hand with fundraising and we reckon generates much bigger and better things. The Ralph’s Life CD fundraiser has achieved way more than £5K+ in donations over the last few weeks. Forty fantastic artists have pledged their beautiful music and have lent their voices to a small campaign with a massive impact, hundreds and collectively thousands more have shown their support through Twitter, Facebook and via blogs and radio stations across the land and way beyond – lots of other countries joined in – with everyone united for one cause: talking about and raising money for mental health awareness and helping to counter the stigma which so often accompanies mental illness. ***

A lot of fun was also had along the way, especially in the build up to Christmas and New Year with extra music tracks donated, CDs, downloads, restaurant meals, artwork, T-shirts, cocktail recipes, special cassettes, knitted owls (we so wanted one!), poems, guitars, airtime, blog space, newspaper articles, interviews, RTs, MTs, SOs, future promises of support and so much more – it’s been an incredibly creative campaign all round.

One of our favourite things – listen to the RKC jingle:

Hats off to everyone who supported the cause and made such a big noise helping Ralph to achieve his goal with special thanks to RKC / Radio Kaos Caribou!

This is just the beginning of course…  Ralph’s master is now rather busy sorting the 240+ pledges from the crowdfunder, organising production of the 40 track CD and preparing for the London launch, a 14 band all day gig at Proud in Camden. We’re helping as much as we can. Whether you’ve been supporting this campaign all along or have just joined the ride, please help us too – let’s take this to the next level.

Support and Follow:

@fruitbatwalton (that’s Ralph) and @FineLineProject on Twitter, Ralph’s Mental Health Awareness Page on Facebook, The Fine Line Project on Facebook and please spread the word about the launch gig. Here’s the Facebook event page for that and here’s the crucial link:

2 MARCH 2014 – RALPH’S LIFE CD LAUNCH NIGHT TICKET LINK

The Proud Camden gig is due to feature 13 of the bands from the CD and one local guest band –that’s 14 bands, all for a mere £10 and with all proceeds to Rethink:

If you can’t make it to the gig, please keep an eye out for the CD – we’ll need your help to sell all the copies and raise even more money for Rethink.

Once again folks, THANK YOU!

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Crowd Funding Campaign: Music Supporting Mental Health Awareness

Today’s the big day! Ralph’s Life has launched a 6 week crowd funding campaign to produce a charity CD featuring 40 brilliant tracks by (mainly) Indie artistes. We know they’re all brilliant because we did a mega micro-review session on Twitter covering every single number during a special show courtesy of the fantastic Radio Kaos Caribou a few days ago.

Wullae Wright, one of the talented contributors to the double album has created some stunning artwork featuring all the artistes’ names and the one and only Ralph, of course. Plans are afoot (apaw?) to get some prints made.

Wullae Wright for #RalFLP

The support for this great music project has so far been phenomenal and now’s the time to turn up the volume by sharing the story with as many people as you can. We want to raise as much awareness and money as possible. Every penny raised will go to charity Rethink Mental Illness – although they’re UK based their reach is global. Rethink also run ground-breaking campaigns like Time To Change with Mind Charity making a direct impact on how mental illness is viewed, discussed and managed at every level. It really is Time To Talk about mental health – this should be in the same breath as physical health – the two go hand in hand after all.

A couple of other artists are donating proceeds from their latest track sales over the next 6 weeks. Check this epic number by Graham Marshall whose track will feature on the double CD and this beautiful song by his friend Jane Allison.

To listen to some of the tracks on Ralph’s Life double album check out The Fine Line Project on Soundcloud.

The most crucial link of all, here is Ralph’s Life’s Charity Music CD’s Crowdfunding page – please make a pledge today (from as little as £1) and ask all your friends, family and work colleagues to get involved with this important cause. Mental health issues affect 1 in 4 worldwide – none of us can afford to be complacent. Let’s all help to bring about some change today.

We thank you in advance for spreading the good word and the great music!

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Get On The Dog And Bone – We’ve Got News!

Big news at The Fine Line Project and it didn’t come down the phone line, we heard it on Twitter first. The most connected Jack Russell in music, top dog at the Ralph’s Life Music Blog, has decided to crowdfund a charity CD for us and we’re going to donate all the money to Rethink!Ralph's Life CD Project

It just so happens that it’s a big week for Rethink Mental Illness too. Schizophrenia Awareness Week runs from today until the 17th November. With the tag line Stand Up For Schizophrenia, the campaign focuses on widening understanding about this often shunned and misunderstood illness.

Imagine being bombarded with voices from invisible forces and being stripped of your ability to understand what’s real and what isn’t.

You discover you can’t trust your senses, your mind plays tricks on you, and your family or friends might even appear to be part of a conspiracy to harm you.

This is schizophrenia.

What could be worse than these symptoms?

Sadly, ignorance and fear can be. We can all help improve the lives of people with schizophrenia by standing alongside them and spreading more understanding. Let’s tackle the ignorance, the fear and the stigma together.Rethink logo

The Fine Line Project has raised funds for Rethink before and we’re delighted to support them again, this time with Ralph’s venture. The charity has a national reach and an international impact. They also tackle the harder end of mental health and they run brilliant and inclusive awareness campaigns. finelineprojectcheque2013rethinkWWe recently delivered a cheque for £1000 to them, raised with multi-media site St Pauls Lifestyle’s support at The Cellar in Southampton. This epic show featured Noah Francis, Where’s Strutter?, Charlotte Campbell and Mog Stanley.  We’ve got another live event in the pipeline, but more about that later. Right now we’re pulling out all the stops for Ralph’s fundraising CD – please join us in supporting his efforts and in raising mental health awareness everywhere. Let’s spin this one out, not just this week but all the way to the CD launch and way beyond.

BIG thanks to Ralph’s Life and all the early adopters – we’ve got some brilliant music lined up and this time if you can’t come to the gig you can still support the project by buying a copy of the CD online. Check back soon for a band list and lots more news. You can also get the latest on Twitter and Facebook. We thank you for your support.

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Charlotte Campbell @ The Fine Line Project, Southampton Cellar

Charlotte Campbell delivered a finely tuned and utterly engaging set for our Rethink Mental Illness Benefit last month. Catchy songs, finely played, interspersed with a perfectly pitched dialogue – the entire audience was enchanted.

CharlotteCampbellA2276SteveMaynardTFLP613a

Since the gig we’ve been enjoying her album Blue Eyed Soul – thoughtful and thought-provoking lyrics, fresh melodies, crystalline voice with a honeyed warmth.CharlotteCampbellA2272SteveMaynardTFLP613b

Along with her signature tracks Blue Eyes, Green Eyes, Quiet Nights and Feathers and Wax (more of which below), check Jump, Charlotte’s reflections on the music industry, and On the Southbank dedicated to the famous London riverside where you may yet catch her busking, before she becomes too famous.

CharlotteCampbellA2252SteveMaynardTFLP613wmWe also love Feathers & Wax, with thanks to Charlotte for sharing the lyrics – here’s a little snippet:

We look around for something inviting
For unholy ground, safe from the lightening that singed our wings.
Why are we here, raising our voices?
It seems so unclear, but we all made our choices to sing.
And that’s the main thing.

I’ve found that the meaning of life
Is to do what you love and try to survive  
And hope that you don’t fall apart
When you’re finally opening your heart.
And find that the clothes on your back
Are nothing but feathers and wax.CharlotteCampbellA2260SteveMaynardTFLP613wm

Here’s a link to the full track on Charlotte’s site:

Read some more about this bright young artiste and listen to a couple of completely different tracks on St Pauls Lifestyle’s brilliant multi-media site. Most of all catch her next gigs – Charlotte’s singing in Llanbedrog, Aylesbury and Cambridge so far in August.

CharlotteCampbellA2274SteveMaynardTFLP613wmcfBig thanks again to Charlotte, Steve Maynard for some more great photographs, the St Pauls Lifestyle team and The Cellar Southampton for hosting the event.