Hersh Establishes Chesnutt Donation Site

Donate now - it's easy, straight through PayPal - if you want to help defray the family's medical expenses.

By Fred Mills

In the wake of the sad news of Vic Chesnutt's death on Christmas (details here), his close friend Kristin Hersh has established a website where fans and friends can donate funds via PayPal to Chesnutt's family. Presumably some relatively high medical bills accrued in the wake of Chesnutt's suicide attempt (by overdose) and subsequent coma and hospitalization.

Friday Hersh Twittered the following note: "JesseCASH has set up a donation page for all of you asking to help Vic's family -  thank you for all your love & support." At the page, in addition to the donation link, is Hersh's tribute to Chesnutt, which reads, in part:

What this man was capable of was superhuman. Vic was brilliant, hilarious and necessary; his songs messages from the ether, uncensored. He developed a guitar style that allowed him to play bass, rhythm and lead in the same song - this with the movement of only two fingers. His fluid timing was inimitable, his poetry untainted by influences. He was my best friend.

I don't know if I'll ever be able to listen to his music again, but I know how vital it is that others hear it. When I got the phone call I'd been dreading for the last fifteen years, I lost my balance. My whole being shifted to the left; I couldn't stand up without careening into the wall and I was freezing cold. I don't think I like this planet without Vic; I swore I would never live here without him. But what he left here is the sound of a life that pushed against its constraints, as all lives should. It's the sound of someone on fire. It makes this planet better.