So when I recently completed work on three previously unreleased/unfinished/unmixed recordings recovered from our How to Clean Everything and Less Talk, More Rock master tapes, me and jordy-boy began talking about releasing them publicly on a donation basis to cover the costs of recovering the tapes and to hopefully make a financial contribution to a progressive community initiative that reflected our core values.

About the same time we were mulling potential beneficiaries over, news began rolling in about a natural disaster unfolding in Haiti.

There's no good place for a 7.0 magnitude earthquake to hit, but Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest (and most interfered with) nation, is definitely one of the worst.

According to the Canada-Haiti Action Network, the "illegal coup of 2004 (supported by the Canadian, French and US governments) has had an extremely negative impact on Haiti’s social fabric—breakdown in government services, including education and health care; increased poverty; decline of agricultural production…"

…so the last thing the people of Port-Au-Prince needed on top of this continuing foreign domination of their country was a 7.0 magnitude earthquake to add to their misery.

In immediate terms, we obviously encourage people who want to help, to contact a trusted, pro-democracy aid organization directly. We recommend Partners in Health. PIH are a non-profit organization whose mission is to provide a preferential option for the poor in health care, specifically in Haiti. They were one of the groups we directed income to during the initial release of Supporting Caste and you people stepped up.

Hopefully you will again.

As a small but sincere gesture of solidarity -- and in the spirit in which the songs were originally recorded -- we'll release these three vintage tracks as a digital download in late March and donate any profits to Partners in Health to help them continue their mission in the aftermath. Stay tuned.

thanks.

Jesus H. Chris