Time To Change campaign

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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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The Fine Line Project November 2012 Music Benefit for Rethink Mental Illness

Time to announce a few gig details! For those of you who’ve been watching this page, our second music benefit, hosted once again by the legendary (it really is!) Troubadour Club in London, is in aid of Rethink Mental Illness and in support of the ground-breaking Time to Change campaign (run with Mind), which is England’s most ambitious programme to end the stigma and discrimination faced by people with mental health problems.

We’re really excited to have the evening open with Grammy nominated singer/songwriter Leslie Mendelson from New York. Leslie was spotted by Joel Dorn, the legendary Grammy Award winning producer and record label exec, who helped her sign her first record deal. The young singer then worked alongside hit songwriter Steve McEwan (Keith Urban, Faith Hill, Eminem) and award winning producer/arranger Rob Mounsey (Paul Simon, Mary J. Blige, Steely Dan) to shape the sound of her album, Swan Feathers, which was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2009. Leslie has since played all over the US, sharing the stage with legends such as Roberta Flack, Dr. John and Levon Helm from The Band. The songs Turn It Over and Be My Baby from Swan Feathers were featured in the AMC show Rubicon and the Lifetime original movie Too Late To Say Goodbye starring Rob Lowe.  All Come Together was featured in the 2011 Yahoo End Of Year campaign. Leslie is working on a new album scheduled for release in early 2013.

You can check out her sounds here: Leslie Mendelson live.

Next on stage will be the hugely talented Matthew Neel and his brilliant band. Their New Maps of Hell album has been described as “Unique and totally mesmerising, this is an album which proves difficult to turn off”. Read the full run down of accolades on Matthew’s website. In his own words: “I left school at 18 and came straight to London with the express intention of joining a band. Via the back pages of Melody Maker, I found one. We were not good. After a year or so I stole the guitarist and went off to form a new band, then spent a couple of years firing everyone and finding sparkly, talented new people to put in their places. We lasted a few years but eventually became allergic to each-other, dying of toxic shock in a rehearsal room in Putney. Since then, thanks to snapping my wrist and not being able to strum for 8 months I taught myself to fingerpick, and from there came new songs and an album. I’ve always been a sucker for dark folkiness and recently this is the way the songs seem to go. The lovely Luke Brighty plays guitar, Ricky Barber is managing bass duties, Jimmy Shoo is tub-thumping.”

Check out Matthew’s site and sounds here: http://www.matthewneel.com/

Living up to our name, The Fine Line Project’s headline act is due to be announced shortly.

Last but by no means least, the evening will be rounded off by regular Fine Line Project supporter, ace DJ and record producer Liam Rogue State Wild aka UK Rogue State, who will spin his grooves into the early hours. Liam, who hails from Sheffield, has DJ’d all over the UK and Europe and enjoys a massive following wherever and whenever he shares his unique blend of sounds. We’re so happy to have him on board for a second round of great music.

Hear some of Liam’s sounds: http://soundcloud.com/ukroguestate

Here’s how the flyer is shaping up so far…with big thanks to Patrick for the graphics!

Tickets will go on sale once we’ve annouced our headline act. You can join the mailing list to get advance notice of ticket sales by emailing thefinelineproject*(@)*gmail.com. We’ll also post up details on our Facebook events page along with links to our guest artists’ pages.

Link through to Rethink and the Time to Change campaign websites to find out more about them, or check on our Charities and Support page.

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Next Fundraiser for Mental Health – Time For A Rethink

It’s official: our next fundraising gig will be in aid of Rethink, who celebrate their 40th anniversary this year. They started out as the National Schizophrenia Fellowship, operating at a time when conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar (then know as manic depression), were barely spoken about. Anyone diagnosed with or caring for someone affected by these wide ranging and often debilitating conditions was almost utterly bereft of any support, let alone information. Thanks to the work of Rethink, and that of a few other pioneering charities including SANE (the beneficiaries of another of our ongoing campaigns), times have changed.

Speaking of pioneering efforts and times changing, the now aptly renamed Rethink Mental Health and Mind’s joint campaign to address stigma, Time To Change, has had a massive and wide-reaching impact on people’s perception and understanding of mental health issues. Their approach has been inclusive and broad, bringing the stigma commonly associated with tackling mental health to the very top of the agenda on TV, radio and also crucially through social media channels and onto the internet. Thanks to the web, people from all over the world are now able to access resources which continue to improve almost daily.

Please take a few minutes to watch this powerful and ground-breaking film produced for the Time To Change campaign. It’s not just relevant to young people and clearly it doesn’t just concern the British population:

Time to Change film link: The Stand Up Kid

As I write, the number of viewers is 53,410 – this video was published on the 12th September 2012, 17 days and less than 3 weeks ago.

There are lots of interesting comments and currrently 504 likes and 21 dislikes – the latter making you wonder who and why they felt the need to disapprove. Therein perhaps lies part of the story about stigma. Anyone touched by mental health issues, whether personally or professionally, knows that stigma remains one of the biggest issues. This is no time for complacency. Whilst the dialogue is more open nowadays, we still need to keep talking. The Time To Change film highlights how difficult talking can be and how crucial it is, from both sides of the fence. The more we can communicate this to others the better. Please share this film and please keep talking.

Find out more about Rethink via our Charities page where you can also donate direct to any of the organisations that we highlight.

To find out more about our forthcoming music benefit for Rethink, please check back soon, join our mailing list thefinelineproject (at) gmail (dot) com or follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

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Momentous Day for Mental Health Campaigners

Time To Change indeed: in the UK today, MPs voted in favour of the Mental Health (Discrimination) Bill, which will now go through to the Committee stage. If eventually passed, it will put an end to archaic laws which interfere with the rights of people with mental health problems from participating in jury service and becoming or remaining a company director. It will also change a law that currently stipulates that MPs themselves will lose their seats if sectioned under the Mental Health Act, regardless of recovery.

Read more on the Time To Change campaign website:

http://www.time-to-change.org.uk/news/mps-vote-scrap-outdated-discriminatory-laws

To keep up to date with proceedings now that the Bill has gone to Committee stage use this link:

http://www.parliament.uk/about/how/laws/flash-passage-bill/

Here’s to the next step!