How Musicians are Raising Money for Japan Relief

Posted Wed Mar 23, 2011 11:00am PDT by Matthew Perpetua in The Rolling Stone Blog

Musicians and record labels are doing their part to help raise money for relief efforts in Japan following the devastation left in the wake of the massive earthquake and tsunami that hit the island nation on March 11th.Here's a list of some planned benefit concerts and projects.
- The Universal Music Group is readying a digital-only benefit album to be released later this week. A tracklisting has not been announced, but U2, Rihanna, Bon Jovi, Justin Bieber and Nicki Minaj are among the artists expected to donate tracks.
- Lady Gaga has been selling special prayer bracelets on her site with all proceeds going to tsunami relief in Japan.
- Sonic Youth are auctioning off a set of rare posters and sneakers, and will headline a concert on March 27th at Columbia University's Miller Theater with performances by Yoko Ono, Mike Patton, John Zorn, Sean Lennon and others.
- Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore will also headline a benefit concert featuring a number of avant garde luminaries at the Henry Street Settlement in Manhattan on April 8th.
- Norah Jones will headline a separate event on the same evening for the Henry Street Settlement.
- Beady Eye, Primal Scream, Richard Ashcroft, Paul Weller and Blur's Graham Coxon will be performing a benefit show together at London's O2 Academy on April 3rd.
- Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass and Bill Laswell will be performing at a fundraising concert at the Japan Society in Manhattan on April 9th.

- Hanson played an impromptu 12-hour charity event at the SXSW festival on Saturday, and the band is still encouraging fans to donate to the SXSW4Japan fund.
- Yo La Tengo will play a one-off benefit show at Maxwell's in Hoboken on March 23rd.
- Warp Records, home of Grizzly Bear, Aphex Twin and !!!, are selling a special-edition T-shirt to raise money for Red Cross Japan Tsunami Aid Fund.
- The Mountain Goats are auctioning off an unreleased demo cassette to raise money for Doctors Without Borders relief efforts in Japan.

- Frightened Rabbit's Scott Hutchison will headline a charity gig on March 30th at Stereo in Glasgow, Scotland to raise money for the Red Cross in Japan.
Photo by Jun Sato/WireImage