http://steveaoki.com

My good friend and someone I’ve looked up to for many years growing up Sarah Kirsch, also known as Mike Kirsch, from John Henry West, Bread & Circuits, Torches to Rome, Please Inform the Captain this is a Hijack, Badder Brains amongst other bands, is dealing with cancer and needs our help. Please help Sarah get through this tough time. Read below and there is a link where you can donate money. - Steve Aoki

From Sarah’s Camp:

Wow! It’s almost unbelievable how many people have come out of the woodwork to support Sarah. Our heartfelt thanks to MRR for putting the word out more broadly as well as to each and every one of you who has given to Sarah’s cause. From the largest donations to the smallest, to even those of you who have just been able to send along much needed and appreciated words of support… you truly don’t know how much this means to Sarah, her family and our care-giving team of friends!

We’d also like to extend a huge thank you to Sarah’s parents, who have been supporting us and her in a tremendous way! Parental help is often taken for granted, so we want to make sure everyone knows how invaluable their assistance has been!

Sarah’s situation is *gradually* improving, but it’s going to remain a difficult road to recovery, and we’re not out of the woods by a long shot (just over half way through the dreaded 100 day home lock-down for starters). She has just started to do things like take a nightly walk outside and is even spending some time working on record artwork and starting to play a few notes on her synthesizers and guitar.

The best news has been that preliminary blood tests have shown that the
transplant has taken 100%, although a more invasive bone marrow biopsy is
required to know for certain.

Unfortunately though, Sarah still has precious little energy (even on good
days), and though she wishes she could write or call many of you to
express her thanks and talk to you individually at length, the enormity of
fully resuming any kind of contact with anyone beyond the people who are
here caring for her is still very daunting.

But to everyone who has been showing support in ways large and small,
Sarah says (verbally and transcribed by us):

“Thanks to everyone – old friends and people I don’t even know… It’s inspiring to see how the community can come together to help someone in need. I wish I could contact everyone individually, people that gave financially or not, but being on so many medications makes it really hard to do anything – like even typing an email is so hard. I apologize to people who I haven’t been able to thank and I want them to know that I’m thinking
about them and that all their support gives me strength.”

It’s very hard for us to write an update like this and not be able to enthusiastically report that “We’ve reached our goal!” or anywhere near close, but rather to RENEW OUR APPEAL at the same time as we give thanks. The
reality of the situation is that we are still burning through money like
it grows on trees.

Despite all the very VERY generous help of friends, family and others,
life savings have been depleted or are still dwindling and budgets are
being stretched beyond anything we could have imagined.

If you’ve already given what you can (again, THANK YOU!), maybe pass the
word to other friends or help organize a fund raiser. Here is the link to
the MRR post, which is an easy link to send around for context:

http://maximumrocknroll.com/help-sarah-kirsch/

Benefit shows are already in the works, from the Bay Area to the East
Coast, to even Amsterdam (last LARM gig May 26th!) and Japan, and multiple
people have offered to organize or contribute to auctions of many sorts…
So thanks again so much to all of you for taking some initiative or just
sending good vibes…

SO THANKS AGAIN EVERYONE!!!
LET’S KEEP HELPING SARAH MAKE IT THROUGH THIS!!