Album Notes

NEWSFLASH: IT MAY ONLY BE A DROP IN THE OCEAN BUT CDBABY HAVE JUST FORWARDED ME A CHEQUE FOR $106. AS SOON AS I CASH THIS THE MONEY WILL GO TO CHRISTIAN AID TO HELP WITH THE WORK THEY'RE DOING IN SOME OF THE POOREST AND HIV-DEVASTATED PARTS OF AFRICA. THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO'S BOUGHT THE RECORD SO FAR. IF YOU HAVEN'T, PLEASE TAKE A LISTEN AND CHECK OUT SOME OF THE INFO BELOW. IT IS MY SINCERE AIM TO RAISE THOUSANDS FOR VARIOUS CHARITIES DOING INCREDIBLE WORK IN AFRICA - PLEASE DON'T FOR ONE MOMENT ASSUME THAT THIS IS SOME SORT OF SCAM. AND IF YOU HAVE ANY QUERIES OR COMMENTS PLEASE EMAIL ME FROM THE LINK BELOW.
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THE REASON

Here are some statistics:

1.Over 40 million people in Africa are living with HIV

2. In 2001 there were 5 million new infections - 800,000 of them children.

3. 13 million children have been orphaned by AIDS.
This number is forecast to more than double by 2010.

4. In 2001 HIV/AIDS claimed the life of a child every minute.

Diseases thrive off instability. Instability makes people act in a way they normally wouldn't. Many apparently stable situations are in fact extremely fragile and can collapse at the slightest touch.

HIV infection is high in countries where there is instability, be it extreme poverty, conflict or an oppressive regime creating a culture of silence.

BEYOND STATISTICS WE FIND REALITY:
I read the following report a few months back - its what drove me to try and do something myself about the crisis:

"The African experience"

"Some years after AIDS was first diagnosed in the United States, the first cases were recognised in Africa. We know today that for years thousands had been dying, but their deaths were blamed on tuberculosis and other diseases.

"In many towns and cities across Central Africa, up to a third of all young adults are infected. A third of the truck drivers running the main north/south routes and half the prostitutes in many towns are carrying HIV. One relief agency in the early 1990s talked unofficially about pulling out of Central Africa. `What's the point in drilling more wells when most of the people will be dead in a few years?

"I have visited villages where grandmothers are looking after their grandchildren because so many young men and women, the parents, have been wiped out by AIDS. Armies of troops in Central Africa are being depleted---not by rockets and machine guns, but by AIDS. Breadwinners for families and providers of the countries' wealth are missing. The educated elite living in the main towns and cities have often been worst hit.

"As early as 1991 I found it hard in a city like Kampala to find a family that was not attending an AIDS funeral on average once a month. Deaths continued to soar over the next decade among young adults.

"In the early days of the pandemic, officials stood at the doors of some hospitals selecting the fit ones for treatment. Anyone who looked thin and weak was sent back into the bush---`Probably got AIDS; nothing we can do for him.' Many were sent away with perfectly treatable diseases such as tuberculosis. You cannot tell the difference at the door.

"Years and years of careful preventive medicine has been undermined. How do you start educating about a disease which produces no illness for years, when nurses are still battling against ingrained habits just to get mothers to give their children a healthy diet?

"The children's wards are full of dying children. Many are babies under one or two years old. Many are not dying of famine, but of AIDS. A terrible tragedy is that a significant number in the 1980s and early 1990s caught the virus not while in their mothers' wombs, or from their mother's milk, but from the use of unsterilised needles."

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Some charities are doing phenomenal work among the victims of this epidemic - and it is to these charities that I want to donate all artist profit raised through the selling of my home-recorded album 'Songs from the Spare Room'

Initially 'Christian Aid' has been proposed as an appropriate recipient of raised funds. You can read more about them or contribute directly on their website.

The following quickly sums up their mission:

"The aim of all Christian Aid's development work is to enable people to create for themselves a stable environment in which to live and work. To enable them to have enough to eat, to have a roof over their heads, a regular, sustainable income and a peaceful community in which they can play a part.

"Christian Aid funds both secular and church-based organisations. Their work includes caring for people with AIDS in their homes, public education through street theatre, training in improved health and sanitation and support for families looking after orphaned children."

Okay, there you have it - It takes a lot of effort and commitment to perform such work. It also takes money - and on that point at least we can all help.

THE RECORD

My aim is to raise as much as I can to be donated to charities working with the victims of AIDs in Africa and elsewhere.

By buying this record, you will help make a great difference. It may only be a small amount of money to you, but for someone else it could be one of the most important purchases you make this year.

Even if you don't buy this album, simply email people you know with this web page address; the more people who take a look, the more chance we have of raising lots of money.

Reviews have been very good - the style might be compared to Badly Drawn Boy, maybe Coldplay, bit of a 70's touch with sounds influenced by Bowie (Proof and Born to Love You) and Elton John (I Could be Your Man).

So if you like that general style you should find a space for this album in your collection.

Production is basic - its the songs that you should listen to.

Finally, now that you're here and you've read this far and you've probably clicked on one or two of the songs to have a listen, you may as well go one step further, get that card out of your pocket and contribute to a charity working against a devastating epidemic. In a few days time you'll get a new album into the bargain - and believe me by the time it comes to paying off your credit card bill you probably won't even notice the difference that $12.90 made.

If you like the album let me know - more importantly let everyone else know.

With your help, I can help - and of course the more albums we sell, the smaller the unit cost of production becomes - ie: the more we can contribute.

IMPORTANT

Please note the album will only be produced according to demand and anticipated demand - this is to save on unecessary duplication costs which may eat into the money raised.
So if the album isn't currently available, you can leave your email address in the space provided by CDbaby.com and they will contact you when back in stock (with absolutely no obligation of course).

Thanks for reading
JK
10 June 2003