Five for Phive

Since I have joined the fun on Twitter the amount of loving, caring, quality individuals I have met hs been staggering. Austin has been the well from which most of these people came (although there are others all over the world). It's been a wonderful side benefit to learning how to use this platform to help my clients. In the process, Twitter allowed me to help people on a larger scale than I'd been able to do in the past. My desire to help others stems from my father's influence. In CA he runs a children's charity called the Orange County Children's Book Festival. He is also active in Kiwanis International, March of Dimes and some others. His lifelong example has instilled these same values in me.

There's a guy I met that is truly a cool cat. He's been putting on these INCREDIBLE dub reggae shows at Ruta Maya because he loves the music and is trying to encourage a more vibrant Dub Scene here in Austin. He's from North County, San Diego where dub has a big presence locally. There is definitely a market for this music here. After all, we host Bob Marley day in April at Auditorium Shores and the place looks like it's going to overflow with concertgoers during that weekend.

On New Year's Eve I actually left the sold-out show at Stubb's (sorry BJL love you guys) and met up with a good friend and we hit Ruta Maya. I could feel the bass in my chest, OUTSIDE the coffee/kind beer house. When we got inside, I gave the nice lady (Phive's wife it turned out) at the door my name. When I did, this tall, ginger-haired guy exclaimed, "Dude! You're Greg Ackerman?!" and reach out to give me a big, warm hug. He was awesome. So positive. The kind of person you WANT to hang around.

Phive encouraged me to check out the show. Which was great. There were a number of DJs spinning that night, but the guy who seemed to do it for me was McPullish.

Later, in front of the club, Phive and I were talking. I asked him how he ended up in Austin. He told me it was a cool place to raise his family and hang. He also told me he had to sell his top of the line Nikon Camera along with both his lenses to put food on the table. He said it with a smile on his face and quickly changed the subject. But I could tell he was crushed.

You see, Phive is not a concert promoter. He's a professional photographer. With no camera. He told me Music Festivals INVITE him to shoot. It would sure be nice to have him shooting SXSW. I asked Phive last week what gear he'd owned. After calculating costs to replace these items, I created a button named Five for Phive at the bottom of this page. If 600 of you caring ATXers I've met in the past six months decide to help by donating only $5 to the fund I created (I set up an account at Velocity Credit Union), I'll be able to turn over enough funds for Phive to get back to his bread and butter, shooting fantastic live music photos.

Please use Pay Pal or a CC to donate at the top of the page . My goal is to raise $3k by March 1st. I know it can be done. Read my post on the Build Texas blog. Thank you for reading. And for donating.