Fellow Townspeople, I come before you one more time as an honest supplicant, begging your favor and craving your collective indulgence on behalf of a devastated nation, still reeling from the effects of disaster.

You may remember about a month ago, my company co-sponsored a benefit concert for victims of the Haiti earthquake, at which we raised nearly $6,000. What I don’t think I told you then was that the artists at the show were being filmed by a multi-camera HD film crew, and that they’d be edited together by some of the finest editing professionals in the DC area. The idea was that these performances would form the “seed content” for a Web site that would allow unsigned bands and artists to share their music with the world, while urging listeners to donate to the charity of their choice.

Well, many weeks of volunteer work later, we have a Web site: www.indiemusicforhaiti.com. Now, we need your help. If you’re a musician, we want you to help us populate the site with great music — and we want you to spread the word about the place with fellow bands and musicians. If you’re an avid listener, we want your eyes and ears. And Haiti, of course, would appreciate your money, if you have any to spare.

I urge all Townspeople to check the site out. There’s already a lot of great music up there for you to enjoy — including a track penned and performed by yours truly, with the able assistance of Paul Garisto, drummer for the Psychedelic Furs!

Thanks, townspeople. As always… I LOOK FORWARD TO YOUR RESPONSES.

HVB

Fellow Townspeople:

I won’t take up valuable RTH time to tell you how much Haiti needs your help. What I will tell you is that I and my recording studio have been working with some amazing, talented, generous musicians and other folks to put on a benefit show in Washington, DC on Feb. 2. If you’re in town, please join us — 100% of your $15 admission will go to Voice Of Haiti, a charity founded by a couple of DC-area film-makers who run an incredibly tight non-profit ship.

If you can’t make the show — there are still ways you can help. One: head out to Voice Of Haiti right now to make an online donation. Two: wait until after the show, then donate at Indie Music for Haiti, a site we’re building to host high-quality video files from the event for folks who couldn’t make it. Beyond that, here are some details:

The basics:
Feb. 2, DC9, 1940 9th St. NW, Washington DC
Doors open at 8:30
Show starts at 9:00
$15

Lineup:

• Tommy T (of Gogol Bordello) and the Abyssinia Roots Collective, in their debut public performance, delivering the Ethiopian jazz/dub goods
• Sitali — one of DC’s best-kept musical secrets, featuring Sitali Khumalo, a featured performer with the Thievery Corporation
• DC’s premier old-school ska orchestra, Eastern Standard Time
• DC’s fave retro-mod, garage-soul groovers, The Ambitions, featuring Caz Gardiner
• Spoonboy, the lead singer for the amazing Max Levine Ensemble, doing his agit-prop, solo Billy Bragg thing

…and here are a few details about Voice Of Haiti, for those of you who are healthily skeptical about charities with which you are unfamiliar: according to the IRS, Voice Of Haiti can honestly claim that 90% of all money raised actually goes to work “in country” — and they’ve been working through local volunteers there for many years. God bless the charities that are rushing to the scene to help in the country’s hour of need, but VOH has been there for years, focused on projects related to long-term agricultural/economic sustainability, trying to give Haitians a good reason *not* to live in the squalor of Port-au-prince.