In November of last year, the family of Music From Outer Space founder Ray Wilson announced that he is fighting Stage 4 cancer and that he could use the help of the synth community.
Wilson has been a leader in synth DIY for years – offering a variety of projects via his Music From Outer Space (MFOS) site. His DIY designs include a complete line of analog synth modules, lo fi noise boxes, sequencers, the Sound Lab Mini-Synth and the Weird Sound Generator. He is also the author of the book Make: Analog Synthesizers.
His children started a GoFundMe campaign to help Wilson and his wife with expenses, which has received donations already from over 700 people.
Now members of the synth community have created an album of music, inspired by Wilson, with all proceeds to benefit Wilson and his family.
Here’s what they have to say about the album:
A few months ago, the greater electronic music community was made aware that our age old enemy of space, time and family had come to visit someone we all love again. Ray Wilson (founder of Music From Outer Space) was diagnosed with bladder cancer.
As a community we made the donations to help Ray and his family meet the demands of life under these circumstances and we sent support.
But a group of us from the Facebook Group page, “The Hard, The Soft, & The Modular” also decided to come together and make an album in his name… dedicated to the impact that he has on our lives. The objective was simply to make music from outer space for Ray Wilson and for the world.
Not all of us use modular synthesizers… but all of us studied electronic music and are connected to Ray through his wisdom and insight. You will find a dizzying array of tools techniques and methods of realization used to create this triptastic meditational album.
All artists have agreed that all proceeds from this album go directly to Ray and his family to support his medical expenses.
You can preview it below:
The album is available for US $8 at Bandcamp. All proceeds go to Wilson.
I’m not trying to be a jerk. It sounds like he doesn’t have health insurance. Can’t he buy Obamacare?
Not trying to be a jerk, but it sounds like you don’t have any clue about the financial impact of stage 4 cancer.
Also – if you checked the links, you’d know that he’s got insurance, but insurance doesn’t cut it when you’re dealing with cancer and loss of income.
“Because my parents are both self-employed, they pay for their own healthcare. They are not covered by any sort of employer-provided long term leave benefits. Currently they pay about $1500 per month for health insurance. Add to this baseline the array of tests, prescriptions, transportation, specialist visits, new dietary needs, and the general cost of living. It is very expensive to be sick. ”
You can blame the victims of cancer for not having an extra half a mil lying around, or you try to contribute positively to the community. Is the choice really that hard?
SIGN READS:
“DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS”
If you’re not a jerk, why are you being so patronizing?
“UH AHEM WELL ACTUALLY, HAVE YOU CONSIDERED NOT DYING HORRIBLY? Just a thought, happy to help!!!”
Thank you so much for publishing this!
We all worked hard on this project and want to do what we can for Ray.
i am from germany. i do not want to offend. i just would like to understand.
in germany, health care covers about everything when you suffer from cancer: ie treatment, medication, loss of income (in a certain reasonable range). this is the case both for basic ‘legal’ (most employees have this) and better ‘private’ health insurance (self employed people and employees with good wages have this).
health insurance will pay your living for about 6 months. after, income protection insurance (most people have this) will kick in till your age of 65.
i do not understand, i am sorry – the US are a rich country. is it really true that US health insurance in the range of US$ 1,500/month does not cover everything? what does it cover then?
In the US, most people do have some sort of health insurance, but almost all health insurance has significant coverage limits and a deductible. For example, insurance may not pay anything until you have $5,000 of expenses, and then pay 80% of covered expense up to some maximum out-of-pocket limit.
So, it’s not unusual for people in health situations like this to have huge expenses.
Health insurance also does not cover loss of income and many other expenses that people have to deal with, like long-term healthcare.
US healthcare laws are basically written by for-profit organizations, which makes healthcare much more expensive, and much less efficient than what you are used to.
For example, the US government allows monopolies on generic drugs and bans purchasing drugs from foreign pharmacies. So drugs that are cheap for you may be very expensive in the US. Drug companies also spend huge amounts of money on advertising in the US – about twice what they spend on medical research.
So, unfortunately, healthcare is very expensive in the US, and – despite the best intentions of most people in the healthcare industry – much of your cost goes for profits and for things that have nothing directly to do with healthcare.
ok, i see. thank you for explaining.
The health care system in the states is one of the most backwards in the world. I really feel for Ray, his family and others in a similar position. The last thing anyone in that situation needs is the added stress of money worries. You should check out the documentary Sicko, though very biased it raises some really important points about how the healthcare system is run out there….if Ray was living in the UK like myself, things like this just are not allowed to happen. Living in one of the richest countries in the world he should also be allowed this standard of living.
The last thing you should look at for any “information” about anything is Mike Moore bullshit.
Wonderful! Thanks for posting and spreading the word! There are a lot of great people that came together to make this happen. Hopefully it helps Ray and his family!
I think the best beneift drive would be to Re-open the MFOS store and let people buy the products again.
Could even have a little Tip Jar to contribute a bit extra at checkout for health bills.
Thank you so much for the compassion and support to our family during the most stressful time in our lives.
The donations allowed me to spend Ray’s final months at his side.
Thank you
The Wilson family