A homegrown benefit concert for expat musician and producer Scott Harding is shaping up to be quite a local talent retrospective. “It’s a cavalcade of stars, like the Apollo in Harlem in the ’60s,” quipped Pointed Sticks vocalist Nick Jones about Hardstock 08, which takes place at the Commodore Ballroom on April 25. “It’s been a groundswell,” he continued, in a call to the Straight. “We were looking to do this with his friends, and he has an awful lot of them. They’re coming out of the woodwork.”

So far, the Pointed Sticks will be joined on the bill by the Jazzmanian Devils, Bughouse 5, Hard Rock Miners, the Furies, Go Four 3, John Mann, I, Braineater, and more. A supergroup called the Hard Ones has also been assembled, featuring Barney Bentall, Paul Hyde, Colin James, and former Odds members Craig Northey, Doug Elliott, and Pat Steward. “It’s a pretty strong lineup of talent, I have to say,” Jones said.

In February, Harding was paralyzed from the waist down when a New York City cab he was riding in was T-boned by a stolen car travelling at 150 kilometres per hour. He had no medical insurance. The benefit is being organized by his former bandmate in the Jazzmanian Devils, Dennis Mills. Harding left Vancouver for New York in 1989, and quickly established himself as a producer and engineer, working with Wu-Tang Clan and Medeski, Martin & Wood, among many others.