This was taken from a Myspace bulletin posted by Men, Women, and Children today.

Dear people,

As some of you already know, our van and trailer and nearly every instrument we’ve ever had were stolen on Monday October 23rd in Detroit around 1 pm in the afternoon, right out of the parking lot of the Day’s Inn we were staying at on East Jefferson (downtown).

I can’t express what a terrible feeling it is to have something like this happen. Pretty much our whole lives were in the van, including equipment that we’ve bought and collected over a long period of time..much of which can never be replaced. Anyway, we’re going to continue the rest of this MTV $2 Bill tour we’re on (thanks to Head A, Cobra & 30) and then sort out what we’re gonna do afterwards, since we already have tour dates set up Kasabian, followed by our Germany and UK headlining tour a few days after Kasabian ends.

We did have insurance but unfortunately it only covers about a quarter of what was in there; between the van, trailer, equipment, lights, merch, clothes and other personal belongings, I can safely say we’ve lost about $100,000 dollars worth of stuff. Every few minutes we think of something else that was in there that’s gone now and punch ourselves in a sensitive area.

If anyone would like to help us out–even if it’s the smallest amount–we have set up a Paypal donation account to help us start to try to replace our gear. Needless to say, anything anyone can donate would mean so much to us, even the smallest amount. We wanna thank everyone for their great emails and continuing support of our band…we love you all very, very much. Oh and before I forget we also wanna thank the Detroit police for showing up 3 1/2 hours after we called, giving the crackhead who robbed us more than enough time disappear into the clean, safe streets of Detroit.

- TJ and the rest of Men Women & Children

If you can, please donate to these guys. They deserve every penny. I know I will.
- James