Pages tagged “charity”

Björk is many, many things, but one thing she is not is boring. The Icelandic songbird has been occupying her time recently with helping come up with a fix for the sinking economy in her native country. Eerily paralleling our own problems here in the States, the Icelandic economy has crumbled under the weight of debt and skyrocketing prices, leading to the governmental takeover of banks.

As far as bargains go, Oct. 7th's Revenge of the Book Eaters was like paying for a burger and being served filet mignon. Talented, witty and charming filet mignon.

Elle MacPherson, Kristin Davis, Bono, Queen Rania al Abdullah of Jordan, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, economist Jeffrey Sachs and musician Angelique Kidjo convened outside the UN on Thursday. They participated in a call-to-action style event, promoting the In My Name program, which has pledged to cut global poverty in half by the year 2015.

826NYC, brainchild of McSweeny's wizard David Eggers, will be having its third annual Bookeaters benefit next month to raise money for their children's writing program. The program has attracted the likes of David Byrne, Sufjan Stevens and Feist in years past, and this year's line-up looks no less impressive.

Tomorrow (Aug. 16), Queens of the Stone Age will be holding a benefit concert for Eleven's Natasha Shneider, at Los Angeles' Harvey Theater. Shneider, who supported QotSA on their 2005 tour, died of cancer earlier this Summer. Proceeds from the show will go towards paying Shneider's medical expenses.

Not that we were betting against it, but it turns out that Paste Emergent artist Ingrid Michaelson has got some philanthropic game to go along with those cooing acoustic tracks she self-released last September on breakout Girls and Boys.

If there was a Girl Talk School of Album Release Technique, The Walkmen would be at the top of the class. Their latest offer, You & Me, will be available on the cheap three weeks early, via the interwebs. But the group has perhaps one-upped Prof. Gillis by adding a new and quite refreshing twist to the lesson: They will be pairing up with Amie Street, an online indie music marketplace, to donate all the proceeds of the $5 album to the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Look at Elijah Wood, beaming like a 3rd grader during show-and-tell. Wood and his Elephant 6 buddies, Apples in Stereo, are auctioning that very guitar to benefit the folks over at Housing Works, Inc. to fight AIDS and homelessness. Brooklyn folk artist and longtime Apples friend/collaborator Steve Keene (who has also worked with Pavement) painted the guitar, which you can currently bid on here. At the time of this posting, you have precisely 12 days, three hours and 37 minutes to get your bid in.

In this edition of the "All Mark Kozelek, All The Time" newscast, we have almost more Kozelek/Sun Kil Moon news than you can handle. Almost. Big fans: please have a paper bag handy for hyperventilation purposes.

The Age of Disco gave us a lot of cultural touchstones, not the strangest of which was the Cartier Love bracelet. Fashioned after chastity belts of yore, the bracelet came with a tiny screwdriver and actually had to be bolted around the wearer's wrist in a permanent fashion, presumably by the giver. Add to the weird factor that it was way on the pricey side, as well as the fact that you were strictly forbidden (by Cartier) from buying one for yourself (it had to be from your lover, being the Love bracelet), and you've got yourself the Decadent Years' hottest commodity.