U2, Fucked Up Among Those Getting Involved With Haiti Relief Efforts

Bono, Alicia Keys, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, Wyclef Jean and Sting are all confirmed to be taking part in actor George Clooney's upcoming Hope For Haiti telethon that will air Friday (Jan. 22).

Jean will co-host the event with Clooney. The show will raise money for the Red Cross, Oxfam, Partners In Health and Jean's own Yele Haiti Foundation. It'll be televised on MTV, ABC, NBC, HBO and CNN.

(In case you've ignored all media in the lately, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit the Caribbean island nation of Haiti on Tuesday night last week, and is estimated to have claimed between 50,000 to 100,000 lives and affected up to three million other people.)

Meanwhile, U2 guitarist The Edge says the band have written a new song that's part of a Haiti charity project Jay-Z and producer/rapper Swizz Beatz are organizing.

"Bono got a call from a producer, Swizz," The Edge (real name Dave Evans) said Friday on The Dave Fanning Show, which airs weekdays on Ireland's RTE 2fm. "He and Jay-Z wanted to do something for Haiti. So, Bono came up with the phrase on the phone, and last night we were there, we wrote a song — finished, recorded, and sent it back to them. So, that might be the next thing you hear from us!"

Meanwhile, Toronto hardcore band Fucked Up announced they'd put a limited-edition double vinyl test pressing copy of their upcoming Couple Tracks: Singles 2002-2009 compilation and a seven-inch test pressing up for auction on eBay. All proceeds raised will go to Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontiers' relief efforts in Haiti.

You can bid on the record here.

Finally, Arcade Fire multi-instrumentalist Regine Chassagne wrote an editorial for The Observer about what the Haitian earthquake means to her.

Chassagne, whose family immigrated to Canada from Haiti during the Francois Duvalier dictatorship, wrote about what it was like to hear about the quake hitting Haiti last week, in addition to why people should donate to the relief efforts.

"When it happened I was at home in Montreal, safe and cosy, surfing the internet, half randomly, like millions of westerners. Breaking news: 7.0 earthquake hits Haiti near Port-Au-Prince," she wrote.

"Such emotion overcame me. My breath stopped. My heart sank and went straight into panic mode. I knew right away that the whole city is in no way built to resist this kind of assault and that this meant that thousands were under rubble. I saw it straight away.

"I ran downstairs and turned on the television. It was true. Tears came rushing right to my eyes and I let out a cry, as if I had just heard that everybody I love had died. The reality, unfortunately, is much worse. Although everything around me is peaceful, I have been in an internal state of emergency for days. My house is quiet, but I forget to eat (food is tasteless). I forget to sleep. I'm on the phone, on email, non-stop. I'm nearly not moving, but my pulse is still fast. I forget who I talked to and who I told what. I leave the house without my bag, my keys. I cannot rest."

You can read the entire editorial here.

Last week, Chassagne and Arcade Fire urged their fans to donate to Partners In Health's Haitian relief efforts.