by Saintmort Geekscape’s Matt Kelly Relaunches His Music Non-Profit

Greetings Geekscape,

If you’ve been here for a few years there’s a chance you know me. Either as the host of the Saint Mort Show, Muppet fan, writer of Guilty Pleasures or former Geekscape camera man. However most of you probably don’t know that in 2004 I started a non-profit.

It was in November of 2004 that one of my best friends (also named Matt) was diagnosed with Leukemia. Before that my only other experience with cancer involved my grandfather and it didn’t exactly end well, so immediately I felt helpless and sad towards my friend. I wanted to find a way to help him but had no clue how, when I suddenly had an idea. I called up a few of my musical friends and we threw together a cheap $5 acoustic show the following week called Music Vs. Cancer. In the end we helped raise a couple hundred bucks to help Matt’s family cover his chemo (Matt is now cancer free).

I loved putting together the show and immediately wanted to throw more. The next show was called Season Greetings and Salutations. This time I booked some bands an proceeds we made from the show were used to purchase toys for kids spending the holidays in the hospital. This became an annual show every December and always one of our most successful shows.

Chords for a Cure was one of the greatest things I ever created. It was something much bigger than me. We helped raise money for various charities and local kids and I was able to develop incredible friendships with various bands. However as the time went on the music scene began to change, things became more and more focused on hardcore. Fights started breaking out, venues started closing and with it Chords for a Cure died in 2009.

However the idea of Chords for a Cure was always alive in my brain. I would dream of ways to bring it back and make it better. However there were two major issues I had to face, the first was finding a new venue and the other was finding a way to make the shows financial success so that the money at the door went to the charity and not paying rental fees.

Monday morning I received an email from Concord Liberty Presbyterian Church in Glenn Mills, PA allowing us to host events at their church. With the venue issue taken care of the next goal was figuring out how to cover rent. That’s when I decided to release compilations of local and/or unsigned bands digitally. These albums help raise awareness for Chords for Cures (our new name), gives exposure to great bands and the $5 goes to pay our rental fees as well as help out some of the bands that are taking time of their tour schedule to help out a great cause.

For our debut compilation I’ve actually re-released our first comp released in 2005 (with a few additional songs over the years). All but two of these bands have since called it quits, however many of them went on to form much more successful groups. Songs on the record feature future members of Racing Kites, Team Goldie, Zolof the Rock N Roll Destroyer and The Scenic to name a few.

During this holiday (on the 8 year anniversary that this all started) give these bands a listen, give us a download and help us change the world… one concert at a time.

-MATT KELLY

Chords For Cures Facebook Page

Chords For Cures Volume 1 Digital Download