Musicians Helping Out

by Will 'The Cranky Music Man' Golightly

For the last two weeks our nation’s tragedy has been unfolding, and I’m not talking about Mariah Carey’s revolving-door stay at the loony bin. Nevertheless, I’m going to try to make fun of famous people. I’ll think of it as a return to normalcy. Whatever the hell that means.

Even I was impressed by how many people were moved to help out with the relief effort. Proceeds from Madonna’s performance at the Staples Center in Los Angeles were pledged to disaster victims and their families, and that’s nothing to sneeze at. I wonder if the $800 "Drowned World Tour" leather jackets are included in the final tally. If anyone bought one, that is.

Clear Channel Worldwide has established a fund that is added to by the many acts touring under one of Clear Channel’s tour promoters. The Backstreet Boys have donated at least $10,000 from their concert Wednesday before last in Toronto. I’m not one to cast aspersions (I like to think), but does anyone else find it highly suspicious the Backstreet Boys were in safe, clean, hockey-lovin’ Canada at the time of the attacks? Other people working with Clear Channel and donating thousands to their relief fund are Lynyrd Skynyrd, Sade, and Earth, Wind & Fire. I didn’t know state fairs paid that well.

Clear Channel, which owns about every other station on the radio dial, is having its radio stations collectively donate $100,000. It’s a prize that was originally going to be given out in a nationwide contest that I strongly suspect was being touted as a local contest in each market the stations broadcast in. But that’s another story altogether, and perhaps one better understood by the Cranky Media Guy.

The lovely Incubus are donating the proceeds from two recent shows to New York relief efforts, and the less lovely Godsmack are donating all proceeds from merchandise sales from a couple shows to some other fund. And if you’ve seen all the Godsmack lunch boxes and pencil cases the kids are toting around these days, you’d have to wonder what New York will do with so much money.

This disaster must have been bigger than I imagined, because even record labels are getting in on the relief effort. All five majors have donated millions to help out, which means the unfortunate families of deceased firemen and police officers have some help. And I suspect the price of a new compact disc will break the $20 mark sooner than we expected.

There are more casualties just those that died in the attacks, however. The Cranberries new video is being recalled. The hundreds of Cranberries fans in the United States will sorely miss it. Bush’s next single, originally called "Speed Kills," has been renamed "The People That We Love." Thanks guys. And perhaps the biggest loss is that the Strokes are removing "New York City Cops" from the American release of their debut album. I’m not sure what this does, since it was released as a single already. But hey, when you grow up in a posh boarding school in Switzerland, you learn how to be sensitive. Though I’m not sure what you learn about New York City cops.