DMB, Usher Lead Katrina Benefits

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The Dave Matthews Band, Usher, Green Day, Alicia Keys, Ludacris, John Mellencamp, Linkin Park's Chester Bennington, Rob Thomas, David Banner and Gretchen Wilson are among the artists performing for a Hurricane Katrina relief concert which will be staged simultaneously on September 10th, in New York, Los Angeles, Nashville and Atlanta.

The shows will air live on MTV, VH1 and CMT, with opportunities for viewers to make call-in donations. All the proceeds will be directed to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund. More performers are expected to be announced in the coming days.

DMB have added a fourth show to their upcoming string of dates -- September 9th through the 12th -- at Colorado's famed Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Money raised from the fourth show will benefit hurricane relief charities.

In other benefit news, BET and hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons will host a telethon on Friday, September 9th, at 7:30 p.m. to raise funds for hurricane victims. Among those joining Simmons are New Orleans native Master P, Wynton Marsalis and David Banner.

As previously reported, Tim McGraw, Harry Connick, Jr., and Marsalis are set to perform on the A Concert for Hurricane Relief telethon, which will air live on NBC, MSNBC and CNBC on Friday, September 2nd, at 8 p.m. Viewers will be encouraged to donate to the Red Cross.

According to New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, thousands are feared dead, and residents who failed to evacuate the flooded, below-sea-level city have no drinkable water, no electricity and are combating widespread looting. President Bush called the storm one of the worst natural disasters in history and said that the recovery effort in the ravaged Gulf Coast could take years.

Donations are currently being accepted at the Red Cross Web site, redcross.org, and hotline, 1-800-HELP-NOW. Habitat For Humanity, Salvation Army and FEMA are also accepting funds at habitat.org, salvationarmyusa.org and fema.gov, respectively.

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Song Stories

“The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie”

The Joy Formidable | 2011

The opener off the Welsh group’s The Big Roar album was an epic one, but the band was worried that track had polarized fans. “The first song is eight minutes long,” Rhydian Dafydd, the Joy Formidable bassist, said. “If you did that in the Seventies people would be, ‘Whatever.’ You do it now, people think, ‘Holy s---!’ Some people think it’s the f---ing greatest track on the entire album, and some people think it’s f---ing boring. It’s that element of needing to challenge people.” The band concluded through the song’s lyrics that love was the “everchanging spectrum of a lie.”

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