Critical Sun Recordings, eight local bands and six local bars will take part in the inaugural Critical Sun Recordings Band Crawl, a fundraiser for Music Aid Northwest. The event is structured like a pub crawl, with one notable exception: the bands will move from place to place instead of the bars’ patrons. Between 11:30am and 5:30pm, each band will play three 30-minute sets at six neighborhood bars, starting at the Ballard Loft and The Leary Traveler in Ballard, moving to the Ballroom and Red Door Alehouse in Fremont, and ending in lower Queen Anne at The Nabob Bar and Floyd’s Place. The all-day event concludes at The Belltown Pub, where event participants and special guests will meet for an acoustic jam session and after-party.

The goal of the event is to raise money for and awareness of Music Aid Northwest, a local nonprofit organization that helps fund public school music programs throughout Washington State. Jim Watkins, Critical Sun Recordings’ Creative Director, commented that “the event was born out of a need to support music education in the public school system and to help prevent a valuable creative outlet for kids from falling victim to budget cuts.” Critical Sun Recordings will offer music downloads and event-related merchandise in exchange for donations at each venue, and all proceeds will go directly to Music Aid Northwest, a recognized 501(c)(3) charitable organization. Participating bands include Critical Sun recording artists Furniture Girls, Rob Marcus and Reji Lefluer, as well as local favorites Sightseer, In Cahoots, Down North, Shaina Rae and The Januariez.

About Music Aid Northwest

Founded in 2005 in response to the Southeast Asia tsunami, Music Aid Northwest (“MAN”) is a local nonprofit organization whose mission is to bring business and community organizations together, with the talent and resources of the Northwest music industry, to provide funds to aid people in need while enhancing and promoting music awareness and performance throughout the region. MAN recently led a successful campaign to create the “Music Matters” license plate program, a self-perpetuating fundraiser that supports public school music programs in Washington State. The distinctive new plate will be available through the Washington State Department of Licensing beginning in January of 2012.

About Critical Sun Recordings

Critical Sun Recordings was founded in Seattle by a team of multi-talented artists whose mission is to empower musicians with the tools and resources to produce and deliver their music on their own terms. Their goal is to cultivate and nurture talent, giving artists the freedom to define their own audience and distribute their audio and/or video content any way they choose. Critical Sun is also a social network, where local and national artists in music and film can meet, collaborate, record and share their work. It’s a growing collective of artists who value and support each others’ work as fervently as they do their own, with the understanding that every artist is working toward a common goal; to allow their projects to reach as broad an audience as possible.

For more information and event details, please visit www.criticalsun.com or www.facebook.com/criticalsun.