Post-punk renaissance man, Henry Rollins will lead a Los Angeles benefit show in support of the Damien Echols Defense Fund. According to WM3.org, the event will take place at the Troubadour on Santa Monica Blvd. on Friday, March 8th and will feature a star-studded lineup. Scheduled to perform are Wayne Kramer, of legendary rockers the MC5, Exene Cervnkaís new band, The Original Sinners and The Rollins Band. A silent auction will take place as well, with rare band collectibles going to the highest bidder, plus a WM3 merch / info table. If you are not familiar with the history of the WM3, click more.
In 1993 three eight-year-old boys were murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas. Three other boys, Jessie Misskelley, Jason Baldwin, and Damien Echols were taken into custody by the police and became known as the West Memphis Three. Because the police admittedly had no physical evidence linking the WM3 to the murder, the boys were tried, not for murder, but for being satanic. As evidence, the prosecution brought forth Echols’ books on Wicca, Baldwin’s Metallica T-shirts, and the coerced statements of mentally disabled Misskelley. This argument was enough to award Misskelley and Baldwin with life plus forty years. Echols was sentenced with death by lethal injection. Since the 1993 film by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky entitled Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, which was aired several times on HBO, a number of celebrity benefits have been held to help raise money to aid the wrongfully imprisoned boys gain a new trail.
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