Christmas Song # 2 and Child’s Play!

Hey Again!

Week 2 of free Christmas songs is here and it’s another one of my favorites, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.  Listen below or download it here! – http://bit.ly/haveyourself

I hope you like it, I sure do and I hope I did this excellent song justice.

Onward and upward, now I’d like to talk to you about another awesome charity that’s doing great things for kids this Christmas season.

Child’s Play is a charity that got started in 2003.  Their mission is simple, provide toys, games, and other gifts to children stuck in hospitals during the holidays.  To date they’ve raised nearly 9 million dollars, last year alone they brought in over 2 million that’s entirely spent on presents for sick kids.

From their website – “Since 2003, we’ve set up and organized Child’s Play, a game industry charity dedicated to improving the lives of children with toys and games in our network of over 70 hospitals worldwide. Over the years, you as a community have answered the call and come together to raise millions of dollars.

Child’s Play works in two ways. With the help of hospital staff, we set up gift wish lists full of video games, toys, books, and other fun stuff for kids. By clicking on a hospital location on our map, you can view that hospital’s wish list and send a gift.”

Pretty cool, right?  I thought so.  Their website is full of testimonials from Hospitals, Parents, and even letters from children who’ve benefited from the program, read them here if you’re interested – http://childsplaycharity.org/testimonials , this one in particular communicates what Child’s Play is all about pretty well in my mind:

“To be sitting there with your child who can barely move for all the tubes and wires connected to him, who hasn’t been able to eat for days and hasn’t been home in weeks, who can’t remember the last time he didn’t feel awful and wonders if he’ll ever feel good again, and have him laugh out loud when he crashes his go-kart in a video game… well, there aren’t words so I won’t try.

— Alan”

Child’s Play accepts monetary donations of any amount, small or large, via paypal or even text messages, you can choose a specific hospital for the money to go to if you’re into that sort of thing.  You could also use their Amazon Wishlist to buy a gift or gifts that have been specifically requested.  It’s all on their website, it’s super easy, and I think it’s an awesome cause.  Take a few minutes to check it out and think about if you have a few extra bucks to help children in need!  Tell your friends, thanks so much for taking the time, and Happy Holidays :)

-loren

Christmas Time is Here

Hi there.  I don’t know if you know, but I love Christmas.  But enough about me.  Sort of.

I recorded a Christmas EP back in 2009 and I wanted to share the songs from it with you guys again this year, because they’re fun!  So, starting today I’ll be re-releasing one of the songs from that album every Thursday between now and Thanksgiving.  Check back on the website, facebook, twitter, whatever, to get the songs! 

So this thing kicks off today!  Here’s the first song off of my EP, it’s a cover of O’ Holy Night.  I hope you love it!

 

Download it for free here – http://music.lorenradis.com/track/o-holy-night

So!  While I’ve got you here, the other thing I’d like to do with each song I release is talk a little bit about a charity or other group that’s doing something worth talking about this Christmas.  That’s what it’s really all about right, helping people?  So this month, I want to talk to you about Compassion International.

From their website - “Compassion International exists as a Christian child advocacy ministry that releases children from spiritual, economic, social and physical poverty and enables them to become responsible, fulfilled Christian adults.

Founded by the Rev. Everett Swanson in 1952, Compassion began providing Korean War orphans with food, shelter, education and health care, as well as Christian training.

Today, Compassion helps more than 1.2 million children in 26 countries.”

This is one of those “Adopt A Child” programs where you can commit to a monthly gift for one specific child who you then get pictures of, can correspond with, and can buy Christmas and Birthday presents for!  Well, for Christmas they’re running a special program where you can send a one-time gift to a child or family in need on your own behalf or in honor of a loved one.  Check out the details here – http://www.compassion.com/catalog.htm

The gifts vary in price from extremely affordable to extremely generous, and I’d encourage anyone interested to help to the best of their ability!  Before we get to far, you may have noticed this is a Christian organization, and I’m aware that not everyone reading this is a Christian.  Helping children in need get clothing, food, and an education, however, is not a Christian ideal.  I believe it’s a human ideal and one worth supporting regardless of someone’s religious affiliation or lack there-of.

So to sum up, I hope you like the song, feel free to download it for free and share it with your friends and family, and I hope you get a chance to check out Compassion’s website and consider lending a helping hand to one of the most deserving groups I can think of, underpriviledged children.

New Times Music Awards 2011!!!

Hey everybody, They’re having the New Times Music Awards again this year.  I have a history of winning places other than 1st (I got 3rd in 2009 and 2nd and 3rd in two categories in 2010) and I think this is a tradition I’d like to continue, so I’ll be entering again this year, Two Thousand and Eleven!

I need to pick some songs to enter, so I’m putting up a list of the ones I’m considering as well as links to where you can hear them all.

You let me know which one/ones you like, and feel free to ask about songs that aren’t included in this list that you think I should consider too!

Thanks a lot, I don’t even know where to start here so your input is much appreciated.  Talk to you later!

NTMA 2011 Demos by loren radis

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

The website’s changing!

I added a CDBaby store widget to the store page, you can listen to my music on any page of the site now with the sidebar bandcamp player (it’s over there to your right!),  the music page is a lot cooler (it’s my bandcamp page integrated into the website, fancy huh?), and the whole look is well… plainer than before!  The plain look is due to the fact that my artistic ability is mostly centered around music, when it comes to visual arts the things that I try to do are usually not incredible.  So if anyone out there wants to make me an awesome looking website, well, I wouldn’t object to that.

What else what else… Oh right!  I’m recording!  Every spare minute has been spent writing, recording, arranging, working on album name and art ideas, and playing Settlers of Catan… I can’t lie, I love that game.  But I’ve written two new songs recently and I’m getting some REALLY good work done in the studio with 100% new material, so those of you who’ve been coming to all my shows asking whether I have a new CD out or not, well, the answer’s still no but… we’re Closer Now Than Ever Before!  Thanks for sticking with me, I’ve got a few ideas to start making it more worth your while to check out the site and read the e-mails I send, like free downloads of new covers and fun stuff like that.  So stay tuned, thanks again, talk to you later!

-loren

p.s. If I were to re-record a newer and awesomer version of an older song for the new CD, which one(s) do you think didn’t get a fair shake the first time around?  Or which one(s) would you like to hear re-imagined?  Leave a comment or e-mail me at lorenradismusic@gmail.com to let me know!  Thanks guys.

Life Water International

I don’t do this super often but I wanna talk about someone other than me for a change, ha.




Life Water International is an international aid organization based here in San Luis Obispo that brings clean drinking water to communities world-wide that otherwise would go without. Here’s an excerpt from their mission statement on their website (http://www.lifewater.org).

“Together with in-country partners and the local communities themselves, Lifewater pursues these three overarching goals:

  • Community well-being improved through water, sanitation, and hygiene education (WASH).
  • Empowered communities. Community members manage their own sustainable water systems and sanitation facilities.
  • Spiritual transformation. Communities experience restored relationships between people, with God, and with their natural environment. “

Anyway, they’re up for a grant from Giving Of Life (.com) that would be such an incredible gift if they won it. You can help by going to this link and voting for the Lifewater project. They don’t ask you to sign up for their newsletter or surrender any personal information, you don’t even need an account to vote. If this project speaks to you, go vote for it and let your friends know about it so they can do the same, and thanks!



http://givingoflife.com/browse/lifewater_international/