I'm Dave Leigh, aka the vocal half of the songwriting team Dr. Lindyke. While not programming or writing songs, I also spend a portion of my free time supporting a charity called Rite Care Centers for Childhood Language Disorders. Rite Care provides speech and language therapy to pre-school children without regard to race, creed, or the family's inability to pay. It's funded entirely by members of the Scottish Rite through various fund-raising projects (not all of which are as harebrained as this one).YES, this is a fund-raising project. But more than that, I'm hoping it will be a FUN-raising project! A while back I had an idea to create a "Periodic Table of Geek Musicians", and set about doing just that. I actually have the table. But I think we can have a little more fun with it than just having me put the names in the boxes. A few days back, I created some swag for Edric Haleen. It was a joke, and I really didn't expect to sell any; however, I have sold a few T-shirts, and Edric was gracious enough to allow me to donate the proceeds to Rite Care. So what I want to do is this...
If you're an independent musician with any kind of presence on the web, and you would like to be on the Periodic Table of Geek Musicians, sign up. Give me permission to create a T-shirt, a mug... some kind of salable item. I'll take care of the design, the fulfillment, the shipping, everything. All you need to do is give me permission, and Rite Care will be able to use the proceeds to pay trained therapists to assist the kids who need it. This is really critical work... a child who can't communicate gets left behind in school and rejected by his peers. Many of them wind up dropping out. By taking care of this problem early, you can change a life for the better. You'll also have some great swag that you can point your fans to. I will do my best design work for you, free of charge. These particular designs will only be available here. Of course, if you'd rather we just use a design that you yourself provide, then absolutely... whatever you want!
A few people have chosen to step up already. As I mentioned above, Edric Haleen is the first. So for that and other reasons, he gets pride of placement with Atomic Number 0.99999 ad infinitum. It does, in fact, equal one (I heard it in a song). He'll have the first of the announcement blog posts here, as well. Other early signers are Inverse T. Clown and my co-conspirators in the "HaleenSwag-gate", Boffo Yux Dudes and JoAnn Abbot.
The Periodic Table itself will indeed be hosted on this site and will be linked in the tabs at the top of the page. Names will be added as they sign up, though expect an initial delay while I get the table ready.
