Originally published at: Go Fund Me for indie rocker Matthew Sweet raises $300k in two days - Boing Boing
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Via Jennifer Sandlin!
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The Girlfriend album has gotten a lot of loud plays in my car and house over the years. One of my favorite guitar albums of all time. Sensational.
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The drummer in my band showed up at rehearsal the other night and immediately delivered this news. I was devastated. He and I bonded a lot over Matthew Sweet when we first met. Later, my wife and I used “I’ve Been Waiting” as the first dance song at our wedding. Then a few years back, she directed the Girlfriend musical, which I played guitar for.
This is not only tragic news, but it should be a god damn indictment on the awfulness of the music industry. Would it really kill the labels to even offer healthcare subsidies, so people like this don’t have to push their bodies to the breaking point in their 60s and still have no support to fall back on?
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Matthew Sweet always deserved more fame and recognition than he got. He played at my college way back in the day. It was notable because there wasn’t that huge of an audience, which kinda pissed me off, and the opening band couldn’t make it because they got stuck in winter weather. Sweet apologized, mentioned that our music hall was much nicer than their last gig, which was in a hockey arena with water all over the place, and then just played his guts out for a crowd much smaller than he deserved.
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And, more generally, an indictment of the healthcare system to which Americans are subjected. None of these heartwarming crowdfunding efforts would be necessary if the U.S. had some version of single-payer universal for its citizens.
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100% spot on. The powers that be have turned all these “little girl sells lemonade to help pay for her father’s chemotherapy” into feel good stories instead of the horror stories they represent. It is very sweet to see an outpouring of empathy, but we should be able to use that empathy for emotional support, not nickles and dimes to help pay for someone not to die.
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It’s also heartbreaking that a musician/producer of Bill Laswell’s magnitude has had to Go Fund Me his medical care, too.
This shit is far beyond fucked up.
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He was on tour (ie working) in a foreign country without health insurance that would cover a medical emergency? That’s insane.
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At my Colorado hospital, four young married nurses recently told me they are planning on moving out of Colorado because they can’t afford to buy a home. With two incomes.
But hospitals have millions to spend on executive bonuses and buildings and expansions and vertical integration.
Health insurance is not health care.
People in the USA get bankrupted from medical care, and end up homeless. People with full time jobs and health insurance can not afford medications that are cheap in other countries.
Every Go Fund Me for health costs is a staggering admission that the USA has totally failed to take care of our people.
Income inequality trouble is coming, or here, for 99% of people in the USA.
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At one of his shows years ago I picked up this wonderful little cat that he made.
I’ll be contributing.
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I find America’s lack of health care disturbing.
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Wait, what happened to Bill Laswell? When?
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Scary AF.
When he first became ill, my BF told me about it and that he’d made a donation.
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Awwww, man 
I was just excitedly telling someone about Method of Defiance, and explaining who Bill Laswell was, whilst cranking it up extra loud on, like, wednesday. I knew nowt about this. Boo.
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Matthew Sweet was one of the major artists I listened to when I first started getting into music as a young teen. Girlfriend is such a good album, but 100% Fun is a near perfect album that I feel doesn’t get enough credit. These are major parts of the soundtrack of my life.
So this news has hit me pretty hard. I hope his rehab and recovery go well and he has plenty of time on the years to come to really appreciate how much his fans love and support him.
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