I’ll be playing a set at the third annual Corona’s Covers For a Cure cancer benefit at the CD 102.5 Big Room Bar this Saturday, March 30th, right around 5 pm. The show runs a full eight hours, 4 pm-midnight, details and a full schedule can be found here.

Corona’s Covers For a Cure is a cause that’s kinda near & dear to my heart. Two years ago – late-winter 2017 – I was leaving the Zangmeister Cancer Clinic where my sister Dianne was receiving chemotherapy treatments for colon cancer and I used to go along to hang out with her during her treatments. As I was driving home I heard a commercial on CD 102.5 for the inaugural Corona benefit show, detailing the idea that local rockers would be doing covers by artists lost to cancer. “Hey, I know some Velvet Underground songs,” I said to myself in the car. (Velvets guitarist Sterling Morrison had died in 1995 of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.)

I contacted the station to cadge my way onto the bill and they kindly accepted. That first year Colin Gawel’s League Bowlers also played the show. Bowlers drummer Jim Johnson and myself had been diagnosed with prostate cancer in previous years, so that was another compelling reason to give back to the cause. What none of us could have known in March 2017 was that Mike Parks – the genius lead guitar player of The League Bowlers – would be diagnosed with a particularly virulent strain of stomach cancer in July of 2017 and be taken from us in January 2018, before the SECOND Corona’s Covers For a Cure show even took place.

Dianne passed in November 2017 and my brother Al from complications of congestive heart failure in February 2018, so that second benefit in March 2018 was a tough one to play. But I worked up an original tune to honor all those passings, and deployed my usual helping of Velvet Underground and Mott The Hoople covers. This year will be a little easier, and I’m happy that CD 102.5 and Corona have again given me the privilege of being able to honor the memories of the musicians AND relatives & friends that we’ve lost.

The show is eight hours long, the money you’re gonna pay at the door will help people, you’re gonna get to down some Coronas and kill a few brain cells to aid a good cause for once, rather than just for the hell of it, so you should come out. I’ll see you there. – Ricki C. / March 26th, 2019.

 CORONA’S COVERS FOR A CURE SCHEDULE, 2019

4:00 Doors

4:30-4:55

Dave and Leanna Buker - The Bee Gees

5:05-5:35

Ricki C. - Ramones/Velvets/Mott The Hoople

5:45-6:30

Gregg Molnar - David Bowie

6:40-7:25

Sean Woosley - The Tragically Hip

7:35-8:20

The Kosher Salamis - The Ramones

8:30-9:15

Methmatics - The New York Dolls

9:25-10:10

Loud Pedal - The Beatles

10:20-11:05

Electro Cult Circus - The Beastie Boys

11:15-12:00

Brian Clash & the Coffee House Rebels - The Velvet Underground