It’s been a tough month for the coworkers, friends and especially family of Relapse Director of Sales Pat Egan, who passed away a few weeks ago due to complications from pneumonia. However, all of those people can take solace in knowing that they’re doing the best they can to cope and banding together to help the family. Relapse released a compilation, Patlapse, which had raised $5,000 towards his teenage daughter Katie’s college fund as of last Friday. Then yesterday, Pig Destroyer, one of the many bands he helped break through in his time at the label, released the Mass & Volume EP, also to go towards Egans’ daughter’s education. And today, more friends of his in the music industry have launched a fundraiser and online auction to further help the family.

From 6-9PM tonight, New York’s Idle Hands Bar will be the site of a memorial for Egan. They’ll be a $50 open bar, with proceeds going to Egan’s family, and they’ll also be taking cash donations. In addition, there’s also been an online auction set up with items from the likes of Metallica, Mastodon, Suicide Silence, Def Leppard, Children of Bodom, Jason Aldean, Rush, Korn and more available. All proceeds will go directly towards Egans’ family. It’s certainly worth looking at the items available for auction, knowing that bidding on them is not only a good way to get cool, rare stuff, but also because it’s for a more than worthy cause. And as sad as Pat’s passing was, it’s encouraging to see that even in death, he’s helping bring the metal community together.