[Updated: 2:30 p.m.] After placing a call to Out of Vogue to get a comment from Mike Atta about the show tonight, he gladly talked to us about how he's doing and thoughts about playing again. See his comments added to the bottom of this post.
Cancer-battling guitarist Mike Atta has a long way to go to beat his illness, but he's definitely taking one big stride tonight when he rejoins the Middle Class for a comeback show in Reseda. After recuperating from a tough round of cancer treatment, Atta is joining his band mates–along with the Adolescents, Love Canal and Glue Gun–at Webers, an all-ages venue.
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Atta's wife, Pam, posted a flier about the show via Facebook. Though the intense treatment Atta recently underwent at USC Norris Cancer Hospital was ineffective on the first try, he and Pam are optimistic about other methods of treatment. “We will be considering every possible type and combination we can try until we find what we need,” Pam says in a recent post.
Atta, who also owns vintage department store Out of Vogue in Fullerton, learned of his cancer back in December. Despite having just beat Stage IV kidney cancer in 2010, he was told to try an aggressive form of treatment called Interleukin 2 in order to fight the illness. As he and his family continue to search for a cure, doing a shows such as this (hopefully, there will be one in OC) is a major mental victory for him and his family, friends and fans.
“We definitely wouldn't have agreed to do it if I wasn't feeling up to it,” says Atta, who was also working in at Out of Vogue today–though he admits he's done so much talking with customers and friends that its been hard to get actual work done. “And the band has been a tight knit unit so when we decided we were going to go through with it, we all just started rehearsing again and it all came together again pretty quickly.”
Atta says that during practice he was actually the least rusty member of the group, according to his band mates. “We're playing in practice and the guys all go 'how is it the guy who has cancer is doing these songs better than all of us [Laughs.]?'”
Atta says the band booked the show last November, a month before he was diagnosed again. He says that in the near future he hopes to do another show both in OC or LA. Most importantly, he's overwhelmed to see the amount of public support his family's gotten, from the benefit show to the generous donations given to Atta's Fundrazr page after his illness was announced. “I knew I had friends, but not THAT many. That was really awesome to see and it was great for my wife and I to feel a little but of the pressure taken off of us financially.”
Atta's next doctor's appointment is on Tuesday. He'll soon find out what other methods of treatment have the best option to help him recovery. But for now, he's perfectly okay with just being in his Fullerton store for a few hours to talk to people and be around his life's blood, the shop and the band. “Let's just say having both of those has been really good medicine,” says
The show tonight starts at 8 p.m., and even though it's quite a hike from OC, we strongly suggest you get out there. Tickets will be sold at the door for as long as they last. Click here for more info on the show.
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