The bar has been raised!

Gigantour recently passed through Milwaukee and I was reunited with a couple of my favorite road crew members. Biffen (with In Flames) and Willie (with Megadeth) were both on the tour, and after explaining the fundraiser, they were both generous with donations.

First Willie donated a total of 19 Megadeth picks:

Two Lamb of god picks from last year's Ozzfest:

And a coule of picks from Overkill that he found in his road case:

Biffen went way above and beyond, going so far as to unpack part of the band's trailer just to get to his stash of picks. When he got to them he handed over a total of TWO-HUNDRED In Flames picks! As he kept handing them to me by the fistful, I was speechless.

I want to take a moment to not only thank Biffen, but the boys in In Flames: Jesper, Bjorn, Anders, Peter and Daniel.

Below you will see pictures of all the different styles of picks Biffen and the Band donated:

Also on the tour I met Darren who donated six picks from Job for a Cowboy:
I also found several picks from Children of Bodom:

Finally, I was given - through a fellow stagehand and collector Craig Crosby - a guitar pick and slide donated by Nils Lofgren after the Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's show in Milwaukee on march 17, 2008. This is a very cool and exceptional donation and I hope it brings a lot of money to the fundraiser at auction.

Way past due...

I am aware that it has been over a month since my last posting. I have no excuse. That being said, in no particular order, here are the donations I have collected in the past month.

From the Boston bands The Briggs and The Street Dogs:



Thanks to Jason from The Briggs for a donation of eleven picks. The Street Dogs didn't have a lot to be able to donate, but generously donated the last two picks they had to the fundraiser:



Thanss to the Street Dogs for helping! P.S. if you have a chance, check both of these bands out! GREAT live shows from them both.

Next, Dustin from Gary Allan's crew dontated 15 picks, five of which came from his personal collection from an earlier Toby Keith tour:

Next, I want to thank Michael O'Brien from the Montgomery Gentry crew for donating seven picks:

Mr. and Mrs. Anonymous have returned with a donation of five additional picks from the band .38 Special:The Brothers Hanson were in town revently during their "Walk Tour" and donated three picks to help the Children's Hospital:

Last and most certainly not least, I want to thank Eddie and Wolfgang Van Halen for their donation of an even dozen picks:

This brings the new total donation to 974 picks. I promise to update more often, as more donations arrive!

More generosity!

As usual, I don't know where to begin.

I want to start by noting that with this latest round of donations, I have broken the 900-pick mark in less than three months.

Of course when I say I broke the mark, it should go without saying that without all the tremendous support and donations, I would not be able to make this claim, so thank you to everyone who has helped me reach this mark so quickly!

This past friday, I worked with some great guys in the Seether and Three Days Grace crews this weekend and they were unbelievably generous. First, Scott with Seether (and the assistant stage manager - correct me if I am wrong in this title, Scott) donated eight Seether picks and seven other picks from his own collection to the fundraiser. Here are the Seether picks:



Scott also donated these picks from the bands Chevelle and Back in the Day:




Next, Moose donated TWO FULL BAGS of Three Days Grace picks to the fundraiser. I will be getting an official count on them later, as I am tired and lazy right now and I want to be sure I give Moose the proper credit for the amazingly generous donation. Here are the styles of the picks the man donated:

Finally, at least for this entry, I contacted the Queensryche website earlier this week and was immediately responded to with enthusiasm for the fundraiser. Literally within days of my request being received, I got seventeen different picks from the people in the Queensryche organization. Here they are:

In closing, I cannot thank Scott, Moose and the Queensryche people enough for their generosity and support in the cause. So far, I have exceeded my expectations in this drive, but I am not going to let that allow me to let up. I still have six months to go and I plan on making the most of it. Thank you for reading and keeping the fundraiser in your thoughts!

- Mesko