MUSICARES HOLDS 5TH ANNUAL MAP BENEFIT HONORING ANTHONY KIEDIS

MusiCares held their 5th Annual Musicians Assistance Program (MAP) benefit on May 8th, 2009 and the event honored Anthony Kiedis of The Red Hot Chili Peppers with The Stevie Ray Vaughn Award for his dedication and support of the MusiCares MAP Fund and for his commitment to helping other addicts with their addiction and recovery process. 2009’s benefit was hosted by Greg Behrendt, comedian and author of “He’s Just Not That Into You,” and featured special performance by Kiedis with Red Hot Chili Peppers bandmates Flea and Chad Smith, who performed with Ronnie Wood and Ivan Neville as The Insects, as well as performances by Thelonious Monster vocalist Bob Forrest with his son Elijah Forrest, musician/producer Josh Klinghoffer, Iggy Pop, DJ AM and a special video performance from Neil Young.

Artisan News caught up with Anthony Keidis on the red carpet to get his thoughts on being honored with The Stevie Ray Vaughn Award.

“Wow! It’s interesting. I prefer just playing music and not being rewarded for saving my life but you got to do what you got to do.”

We also caught up with Red Hot Chili Pepper bassist Flea to get his thoughts on why MAP is so important to the music community.

“I mean MAP helps put people in rehab who can’t afford it other wise and a lot of people really, really need that help. They specifically help musicians but it doesn’t matter to me if they help musicians or plummers or lawyers or garbage men. I don’t care. I’m just down for helping people.”

Legendary rocker Iggy Pop also talked about the importance of MAP.

“I think it’s really important to humanize and regularize the problems that people have with drugs and also to make the music industry and musicians just seem more apart of what should be instead of apart of ‘Oh my God what a mess.'”

MusiCares and The MAP fund provide a much needed safety net of critical assistance for musicians in times of need. MusiCares’ services and resources cover a wide range of financial, medical and personal emergencies, and each case is treated with integrity and confidentiality. MusiCares also focuses the resources and attention of the music industry on human service issues that directly impact the health and welfare of the music community. Former winners of The Stevie Ray Vaughn Award include Dave Navarro, James Hetfield, Chris Cornell and Alice Cooper.