_ Bonnaroo is a festival that you have probably heard about and possibly attended. Most folks do not know that during the festival’s ten year run they have donated more than five million dollars to local, regional and national charities. This year festival partner Rick Farman says that they plan to surpass that amount in the next ten years with new programs and upgrades to current charitable outreach through the Bonnaroo Works Fund , Bonnaroo’s charitable arm.

BWF is administered by the East Tennessee Foundation which identifies (and vets) organizations looking for assistance. They help BWF get money to where it can do the most good.

Some of the organizations helped include; Doctors Without Borders, the American Red Cross. Head Count, MusiCares,  Boys and Girls Club of America, Habitat for Humanity ,Rock the Earth and the Sierra Club and others. Assistance has also been provided for disaster relief in the USA and abroad—help for victims of Hurricane Katrina, the Haitian earthquake, the recent floods in Nashville and during the Gulf oil spill.

Good for Bonnaroo. Other festivals like this should do more as well.

_ Just like Honey is a benefit compilation for Breast Cancer Care in the U.K. The wonderful artist, Oh Minnows, recorded a cover for the comp--The Jesus & Mary Chain’s Just Like Honey for this release. 100 percent of the profits from this release (unlike any of those shite pink ribbon products) will go to Breast Cancer Care. Find out more at www.breastcancercare.org.uk/.

Oh Minnows plays all the instruments himself and recorded the track in his Brooklyn home studio. You can hear at Bandcamp here, http://justlikehoney.bandcamp.com/track/oh-minnows?permalink
You can buy the compilation here--http://justlikehoney.co.uk/covercompil/

Tim Heidecker has nine new songs coming out on a release entitled Cainthology. All the tracks are inspired by GOP presidential candidate, Herman Cain. Initially Heidecker wrote a song inspired by the now infamous Cain “smoking ad.” But Cain is a veritable fountain of material so eight more songs were created.

Heidecker enlisted DJ Douggpound (Doug Lussenhop), Gregg Turkington, Mark Proksch and Chris Bagnall and the songs poured forth.
 
The whole thing took 2 weeks and you can now buy it via download at LittleRecordCompany.com. It will be available at other online retailers soon as well.

ALL proceeds from the sale of Cainthology (Songs In The Key Of Cain) will be donated to the VIP Community Mental Health Center, a violence intervention program. You can find out more about them at www.violenceinterventionprogram.org.

Summer Camp are having a Halloween Party on Tumblr. Their new video for, Down, was directed by Chris Boyle and employs an infinite loop of 50 gifs. The band is going to let 50 different fans debut one of the gifs on their blog or Tumblr page. Find out more HERE.

Summer Camp are also about to release Welcome To Condale (November 8) and tour Europe. A USA tour is in the works for 2012. If you pre-order Welcome To Condale, by the way, a portion of your money will go to Shelter From The Storm, a homeless shelter in London. This advance order gets you the digital download—and various “album packages” which include a film night with the band, brownies baked by the band etc. YOU HAVE TWO DAYS INCLUDING TODAY TO DO THIS HERE.

Tour

October 29 - Battersea Power Station - Relentless Freeze Festival
November 4 - Rome, Italy - Animal Social Club
5 -Bologna, Italy - Covo
9 - Lancaster, UK - Library
10 - Liverpool, UK - Mojo
11 - Newcastle, UK - Dog & Parrot
12 - Leeds, UK - Constellations Festival
14 - Southampton, UK - Joiners
15 - Oxford, UK - Jericho
17 - London, UK - Efes Pool Hall (Dalston)
18 - Canterbury, UK - Farmhouse
19 - Brighton, UK - Green Door Store
21 - Amsterdam, Holland - Paradiso
23 - Brussels, Belgium - WitloofBar, Botanique
24 - Paris, France - Le Petit Bain
25 - Berlin, Germany - Levee
26 - Utrecht, Holland - Le Guess Who @ Ekko

Music folks—promoters bands and eve PR PEOPLE…brrr (I tease them as I was once one of them) have the potential to do a lot of good. One recent example of all of the above (and more) stepping up to the plate is the Life is Good Festival which had 20,000 in attendance and raised a million dollars for Life is Good Playmakers (the “action arm” of the Life is Good Kids Foundation).

Life is Good is a Boston based company with a social mission to help kids overcome life-threatening challenges.

And this festival fundraiser partnered with Superfly Presents (wait? A PROMOTER WITH A SOUL…HOW CAN IT BE…but it IS) and put some super musical acts on three stages. There were kids performers but also included were Ray LaMontagne, The Avett Brothers, Michael Franti and Spearhead, The Levon Helm Band, Robert Randolph and the Family Band, Martin Sexton, Raphael Saadiq, Ingrid Michaelson and The Hold Steady. Brandi Carlile and The Levon Helm Band  did sets with The Boston Pops.

 Life is Good donated 100 percent of theprofits from ticket sales, sponsors and onsite apparel and merch sales to the foundation. ALSO the festival aimed at getting people to do good. They arranged for numerous people to sign on as VGAs (Very Good People) and raise funds for the Life is Good Playmakers. These folks raised over $435,000.

If you were wondering (you cynical bastard), “The Life is good Kids Foundation is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit committed to helping children overcome life-threatening challenges such as violence, illness and extreme poverty.  Its Playmakers initiative provides innovative training and support to the frontline child care professionals dedicated to helping these children so that all involved lead healthier, more joyful lives. To date, the Life is good Playmakers have trained more than 2,500 Playmakers across the country who have provided joyful, healing play to over 130,000 children.”

This last part was a boiler plate description that is going to hurt me with Google I bet. But, I cannot say it better.  The fest had lots of extras and stuff for kids, games, art projects, food and mascots from pro sports teams for photos.

Good for everyone involved.

Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs has a new single…Trouble…coming on October 18th. You can see the video below. TEEN is Orlando Higginbottom who recently traveled to the Congo with Damon Albarn to be one of the producers for the DRC Music project.

This project benefits Oxfam and includes eleven producers from Western nations with musicians from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Aside from Albarn and Higgenbottom, Dan the Automator and Richard Russell were participants. It is not just a good cause, music from the Congo is well worth a listen songwriters and guitarists from the massive nation people now associate only with war have been making fantastic music for decades. Not a lot of it gets much play in the USA.

TEEN will be playing US dates beginning in October.

The Giving Tree Band have spend a lot of time out on the road since the release of their third record, The Joke, The Threat & The Obvious.  Shockingly enough they will spend the summer and fall on tour as well.

They are also working on a fourth record in their home studio. The record should be finished before the end of the year and out in 2012.

Another notable thing about the band is their veganism and support for animals. They are sober. They make their instruments from naturally fallen trees (ok, so those are part of an ecosystem too..but still better than cutting a live tree down) and other eco-friendly things. Apropos of their ethical nature the band will be featured on the benefit compilation, Home On The Range.

That compilation will feature other vegetarian and vegan artists including Chrissie Hynde, Yoko Ono, Moby and Matisyahu. It comes out in September and you can find out more HERE.

Tour

AUGUST
6 - Hayward, WI - Lumber Jam Americana Music
13 - Naperville, IL - Veggie Fest
14 - Naperville, IL - Veggie Fest
15 - Davenport, IA - River Roots Fest
21 - Freeport, IL - Spirit Of Peace And Music Fest
SEPTEMBER
4 - Charleston, SC - The Pour House (w/Toubab Krewe)
6 - Chattanooga, TN - Rhythm & Blues (w/Toubab Krewe)
9 - Urbana, IL - Canopy Club (w/Toubab Krewe)
10 - Dekalb, IL - Middlewest Fest
12 - Cleveland, OH - Grog Shop (w/ Toubab Krewe)
13 - Kalamazoo, MI - Bells Brewery (w/Toubab Krewe)
15 - Grand Rapids, MI - The Intersection (w/Cornmeal)
16 - Columbus, OH - The Basement (w/Cornmeal)
17 - Bloomington, IN - The Bluebird (w/Cornmeal)
24 - Cincinnati, OH - MidPoint Music Festival
OCTOBER
11 - Springfield, MO - Patton Alley (w/Cornmeal)
12 - Dallas, TX - House Of Blues (w/Cornmeal)
13 - Houston, TX - Fitzgeralds (w/Cornmeal)
15 - Utopia, TX - Utopia Music Fest

TargetCancer is an organization—non-profit of course—that exists to raise mone to fight rare forms of cancer. They fund research and help raise awareness for these lesser-known cancers that may not get the attention or funding they should. Right now you can help and hear some cool music too.

New tracks include tracks by Bill Janovitz (Buffalo Tom), Melissa Ferrick, The Click Five.  Other tracks include efforts from Weezer, Ween, The Donnas, Cowboy Junkies, Dean & Britta, Linda Thompson, Sondre Lerche, Bleu, Kay Hanley, David Wax Museum and  tons more. ALL he money goes to fund research.

To purchase music go to righttracktunes.org.

For more information go to targetcancer.info 

Ok. I sing to cats. Usually they are songs about eating them or telling them I am going to make them into a hat. But I do not give speeches to them. Just seems silly to me. Juliana Hatfield has a new record coming out, Speeches Delivered To Animals And Plants, that disagrees.

It comes out August 30 and was a fan-funded record. Good for her.

Awhile back I interviewed Hatfield for Gearwire.com (three audio interviews; one, two, three, four). She was smart and clever and thoughtful. I recall, after the audio interview ended, I made one of those comments that comes out wrong. I forget exactly what I said (it was music gear related). But I immediately felt like a pinhead and thanked her and hung up. It was something about a guitar (I have the same guitar she was talking about). As anyone who knows me will note, I rarely say anything stupid that embarrasses me (cough, cough, cough).

ANYWAY. enough reminiscing.

The record was funded via www.pledgemusic.com and some of the money from the record will benefit Hatfield’s fave animal shelters. How much of the money I cannot say but any amount is nice. Money will go to the Save a Sato animal shelter in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the Northeast Animal Shelter in Salem, Massachusetts.

Her last record, Peace and Love, was awesome.

Switchfoot and Hurley present the 7th Annual Bro-Am, a surf contest and concert, June 18 in Encinitas, California. There will be an auction before and a party after too.

This is a weekend long event and it is a nice thing for Switchfoot to do. Check out the charity that benefits--Stand Up For Kids.

They are a national, nonprofit, volunteer outreach organization that helps at-risk, homeless and street kids. The line up isn’t set yet but keep your eyes open.

Since it’s inception the event has raised more than $400,000 for San Diego kid’s charities. There is more to it than this, visit www.switchfoot.com/c/bro-am for details.