Get our family band going to beat Cancer

I had a beautiful guitar, a Gibson 335 Black dot reissue 1985, for 22 years. And a 12 string acoustic, a bass and an acoustic along with just enough gear and a charity shop giveaway computer to have my own little home studio I would work at of an evening (all night usually, to be honest).

But in 2014 I was victim of a seemingly random couple of assaults, on the same day, by the same guy. Apparently, he didn't like the look of me, calling me a 'dirty hippy'. These assaults, especially the second, left me with an ABI and PTS, and to boot he promised to have me robbed and made good on that. Two weeks later I came home to find it all gone. I couldn't believe it, they went through everything! Anyway, they robbed me again last year, and that time they even took my personal song book. Like stealing someone's diary.

Then my wife got cancer, and my problems didn't seem very big anymore. That sounds selfish, it is selfish, cancer's like that, seems like it only counts if its you or someone close to you. Well, in any case, it changed my perspective: Lets make as many good memories as possible!

Now, I am helping look after my wife and our children, and trying to keep afloat. This opportunity for family to play music has come out of the blue, would be great to really grab it!

I'm a musician and song writer and so is my wife, Jane, who has been fighting cancer and recently started chemotherapy. At that time, out of the blue she was asked to do a gig with her, our, band. We hadn't played publicly for 5 years, and that was a flash in the pan, then. Too busy with family.

Rehearsing week by week, we've got the band going, (with her daughter on drums!) and rehearsed for this gig. Its been a month or so since we started, and we did the gig on Saturday, and had great fun. But I am borrowing my wife's electric guitar, and my amplifier kinda had a stroke.

Its been fun and good healing, (Jane is a great live performer) and regular rehearsals seems to help get through the tough times, with something like a reward for all the chemo-sick days, but to play live and support her I'm gonna need a guitar and amp, and some associated equipment.

The money would go on:
- amplifier $1000 - Fender Twin or similar sound, powerful enough for live,
needs clean pure tone and 2 x 12" speakers, and good reverb.

- laptop, storage, interface, leads $1500 - would be great to record these
rehearsals and performances. Memories are priceless.

-guitar $2000
After playing a Gibson335 for 22 years, I can't go to lesser built guitars. But
if its well built and plays well, it can be any brand.

- drumkit for Christina (borrowing current one) $500

Leftover money, if any, would go towards a road case or two.

I am Darren Lucas, a songwriter and musician known as Jendelui. I grew up in a country music band, eventually called Little Country Band, until I was 17, when I came to Launceston to learn nursing. That lasted seven weeks, I switched to music and learned Jazz. I began playing bass guitar at about age 9, and at 15 picked up a broken old acoustic reject from Mum's and Terry's
(my stepdad) band.

My wife is Jane Allan, Jane Plane, Jane Plain, an accomplished singer, songwriter, piano player, guitar and bass player, and has a Bachelor in Performing Arts as well as 8th Grade classical piano. After hearing her sing one night, a friend commented, "Jane's voice sounds like the flames on Jimi Hendrix' guitar".

I enjoy, where possible, sharing these performances online, and have been twiddling around on YouTube and other sites for years under the handle Jendelui:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAX5WLjri5gyL1yo9_AWxnA

An example of how performing lifts Jane's spirits, here is a song from the gig we did, the song is called Cruisin' Out (On You), its her own material: https://youtu.be/ht_CJ2HLvxc

Here's the whole gig, taken from a camera on the stairs zoomed in: https://youtu.be/c5369ltGnQQ

If you happen to have Google Plus (G+), then you can join our band's new G+ community, Wavecage, where there are links to some of our rehearsal videos:
https://plus.google.com/communities/105746304949649859709


Thanks for your support.

May God bless you.