We are losing our musicians at an alarming rate. According to the January 2020 Rolling Stone article, “We Can’t Have All Our Artists Die,” musicians are suffering from addiction and mental-health issues at an unprecedented rate. Depression. Anxiety. Dependency. All these affect musicians every day.
The Rolling Stone article goes on to say, “In a 2018 study from the Music Industry Research Association, 50% of musicians reported battling symptoms of depression, compared with less than 25 percent of the general adult population. Nearly 12 percent reported having suicidal thoughts — nearly four times the general population. According to a 2019 study published by Swedish digital-distribution platform Record Union, the numbers are even starker: It found that 73 percent of independent musicians have battled stress, anxiety, and depression.” Sadly, about half the people who suffer mental illness will also experience substance abuse during their lives.
Across North Carolina, musicians are struggling with anxiety, depression, substance abuse and suicide. Those who actually have health insurance most likely have little to no mental health coverage for counseling and/or treatment.
That’s why a group of North Carolina activists and musicians created, “Be Good to Yourself,” an initiative to raise much-needed awareness and funds so we can help give our musicians access to mental health care and substance abuse counseling services when they need it most. In times of crisis and in times when they just need someone to talk to.
We believe that our North Carolina musicians are treasures. They enrich our lives and make our state a better place to live. When we lose an artist, we not only lose their talent, we lose a human being. Someone’s son, daughter, father or mother. A friend. Let’s not allow depression, mental illness or substance abuse to stop the music. Let’s start helping our artists be good to themselves.
If you would like to sponsor a musician for a week, month, year or more, or if you would just like to make a one time or ongoing contribution, here's how you can help:
To donate by mail, make checks to Be Good to Yourself and send to:
Be Good to Yourself
c/o Abundance NC
220 Lorax Lane, Box 5
Pittsboro, NC 27312
PayPal: paypal.me/begoodtoyourself
*All sponsorship funds go into Be Good to Yourself's not-for-profit account, and Mindpath Care Centers are paid directly for their services. Neither Be Good to Yourself's board members nor musicians touch the money.
We are excited to announce that Be Good to Yourself will be working with Mindpath Care Centers to provide mental health counseling for our sponsored musicians.
Mindpath is a professional healthcare organization dedicated to providing mental and behavioral healthcare (mindcare) through the highest level of clinical diagnosis, treatment and research of mind and brain conditions. They are the largest outpatient mental health care organization in the state of North Carolina, with twenty locations and more than 150 providers.
Counseling services for musicians will offered at the following Mindcare locations:
Charlotte
6060 Piedmont Row Dr. S, Ste. 500
Charlotte, NC 28287View location
Triangle:
Durham
4220 Apex Hwy. Ste. 200
Durham, NC 27713Raleigh
3610 Bush St.
Raleigh, NC 27609Triad:
Greensboro
1132 N. Church St., Ste. 101
Greensboro, NC 27401**Asheville and Wilmington will be added at a later date. Musicians make an appointment, indicate they are part of “Be Good to Yourself,” and the Mindpath facility will bill BGTY directly for services rendered.
Recording has been ongoing since October 2019, primarily at Old House Studio in Charlotte. We plan to release a twenty-three track double-CD, a "Best Of" ten-track LP, a 33 1/3 EP with four exclusive tracks, and all twenty-seven tracks digitally in the fall, 2021. All twenty-seven tracks were recorded by North Carolina musicians, for North Carolina musicians, including, among many others:
- Mitch Easter
- Snüzz
- Don Dixon
- Peter Holsapple
- Jeffrey Dean Foster
- Terry Anderson
- Rod Abernethy
- John Howie, Jr.
- Rick Miller & Mary Huff
Ed Bumgardner and Rob Slater have been mainstays in the Triad music communities for decades. They have played with great bands including the Luxuriant Sedans, Sneakers, The Allisons, Chris Stamey and many more
Chris Garges is a widely respected musician (drummer for the Spongetones and Mitch Easter’s Balderdash among others) and owner of Old House Studio in Charlotte where most of the music is being recorded and mixed.
From 2011-2013, Mike Allen was co-organizer of “Music for Fences,” a benefit concert for the Coalition to Unchain Dogs, an organization that builds free fences for dog owners who agree to unchain their pets. We had such bands as Superchunk, The Mountain Goats and Mitch Easter play the shows.
In 2016, in direct response to HB2, Mike organized a series of six benefit concerts for EqualityNC (Saxapahaw, Winston-Salem, Wilmington, Asheville, Charlotte and Carrboro) with more than 120 different North Carolina artists (bands and solo performers). He arranged catering, tee shirts, posters, speakers, booked the bands and got venues to donate their space for the shows.
Mike also serves on the planning committee for the annual Be Loud! Sophie benefit concerts at the Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro. Be Loud! is a 501c3 organization that supports the teen and young adult cancer program at UNC Hospitals.
The Wake Forest Listening Room
In 2017, Mike created a live music series in his town of Wake Forest, NC that is one of the few true listening room settings in the state. To date, they have had more than 300 shows and prior to the pandemic, were booked every weekend through the end of 2020 and into 2021.
Be Good to Yourself
℅ Abundance NC
220 Lorax Lane, Box 5
Pittsboro, NC 27312
Email: begoodtoyourself20@gmail.com
Phone: 919-961-9985/919-448-4888.
We are proud that AbundanceNC is our sponsor. They are a fantastic 501c3 incubator located in Pittsboro, NC.
All donations, music purchases and corporate or individual sponsorships of musicians are go directly to AbundanceNC and are then paid directly to Mindpath Care Centers. Neither the BGTY board members nor the musicians touch any of the funds.
