Just want to express the heartbreak we feel about the LA fires. I wanted to acknowledge the suffering that many friends, colleagues and family are experiencing right now and the uncertainty they face.

Our condolences to any of you who have been affected. If you’ve been affected and have a GoFundMe or something, please let me know (jim@nulldigitalanarchy.com). We’ll be creating a page that lists fundraisers for customers and friends in the industry. Admittedly, it’s a small thing, but we’ll do what we can.

I grew up in the Valley and my dad worked in Pasadena. So I know the area well and still have family there. I also understand how wild the Santa Ana winds are. I can’t imagine trying to fight a fire in them. When folks compare it to a tropical storm that rains fire instead of water, they aren’t exaggerating. From all accounts, that’s exactly what it was. Same with the Lahaina fire, which is my other community.

As with Lahaina, the images of LA are just crazy and hard to wrap your head around. Just as the images were of North Carolina and Florida after the recent hurricanes. All symptoms of climate change and just massive tragedies. The loss of life, pets, homes are just heartbreaking. It’s hard to find words for it. I’ve now seen it up close twice in 18 months, the community I grew up in and the community I spend a couple months a year in.

Something I find unbelievably frustrating are the politicians using this to score points and divide people further. Particularly with lies and misinformation. We’re all Americans and human. We all have far more in common than we do in differences. Just people trying to work and live and get on with things. And the changes in weather affect all of us. Whether firestorms, hurricanes, freezing weather, whatever… all these are tragedies that until very recently, were unimaginable in their scope.

So please have some compassion for your fellow artists in LA or North Carolina or wherever the next disaster strikes. Because the unimaginable may happen where you live next. 

But my heart goes out to everyone in LA. I hope everyone reading this has not been affected but realize with so many of our customers in LA, some of you probably have.

As mentioned, if you’ve been affected and have a GoFundMe or something, please let me know (jim@nulldigitalanarchy.com).

We’ll be at NAMM in Anaheim next week. Feels incredibly weird moving ahead with a trade show at this time. But they’re holding the show, so we’ll be there. To me, it feels too soon to have a trade show in LA, but one thing musicians know how to do is play music. And perhaps that’s the response to this tragedy. Just play. There will be a lot of fire relief organizing happening at the show and perhaps a big music industry trade show will bring more attention to the relief efforts. 

We’ll be donating to a few different orgs and hope you all do as well. I’ll post that here once we figure out where our contribution can do the most good.

Sincerely,
Jim Tierney
Chief Executive Anarchist
Digital Anarchy