HARE KRISHNA, WE ARE THE WORLD. DON'T IT MAKE YOU WANNA ROCK 'N'ROLL?

LIVING IN THE MATERIAL WORLD

Mr & Mrs Third Beatle, George & Patti.

George Harrison was the second least talented of the fab mopsters; both the meanie, McCartney and the wife-beating drug addict, Lennon were far more accomplished guitarists and all-round musicians. Harrison was never more than an ersatz, doped-up Chet Atkins, his country licks later augmented by tremolo and whine in the style of his cuckolding chum,

Mr & Mrs Clapton is God, Eric & Patti-Layla.

Clapton ( who actually played the guitar part on the Beatles' While My Guitar Gently Weeps); Georgie's over-rated solo efforts saw him hauled through the New York courts for plagiarism and his later, ensemble affairs with Orbison, Dylan, Petty and that Brummie from ELO - the Travelling Stooges -recycled forty years' worth of pop cliches. Harrison, though, corny, lacklustre and risibly sanctimonious, is the bastard to blame for all this charity-pop, the useless fucking would-be swami, Hare-Krishna-ing his way round the world in a private jet, smoking himself to death, lecturing us, from his hundred room palace, on our materialism. Prat. Chez George. All you need is love. The Concert for Bangla Desh, in 1971, the first charity bash concert, organised by Harrison, in deference to his new inspiration and second, replacement Maharishi (the first one having turned out to be an altogether too Earthly, cock-waving shitbag ) Ravi Shankar, the sitar maestro, revitalised a moribund Bob Dylan and brought to prominence the monster skills of Leon Russell; aside from that, it achieved bugger all, monies earned were squandered in litigation, how very Beatles, how very Apple but the idea of the light entertainment - or rock - aristocracy revitalising it's flagging sales whilst claiming an amaterialistic ministry was born. Since then, of course, every natural disaster or famine seems to have spawned a concert, great or small; in Hyde Park or the Orkney Islands, shameless exhibitionists have insisted that only their talents can truly acquaint a cruel, uninterested world with whatever the tragedy is, that charitable giving can only be unleashed by the combined piety of the likes of the toilet-creeping George Michael, by the bombastic stompings of Queen and the relentless geriatric boogying of the Undead, Status fucking Quo, and by Phil Collins jetting across the Atlantic to beat his drums and whinny about the homeless, modestly exercising his limitless talent on two continents in the same day or by some skriking, beardy fiddler announcing to his ghastly, greybeard audience that this interminable and indistinguishable reel is for the poor people of wherever it is; it's off my new album, on sale at the door. Recently, snapping at the behemoth heels, come all sorts of revolting boybands and freak graduates of Cruelty TV, blinking in the limelight but keen to blackguard us with their concerns for the world's trod-upon, a world of which they know nothing but in which their pimps and handlers can smell opportunity. Save for some poor bastard being pulled miraculously from the ground, the earthquake in Haiti has slid down the news agenda but it is coming to the top in the world of showbiz/Cruelty TV. This from the show-biz industry Bible, the fucking awful Rolling Stone: "The Simon Cowell-curated all-star rendition of R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts” premiered this morning on U.K. radio, Reuters reports. The Haiti benefit single, which will be available for download this Sunday, February 7th, features Mariah Carey, Leona Lewis, Susan Boyle, Rod Stewart, Jon Bon Jovi and Miley Cyrus. Cowell’s version sticks pretty close to the Automatic For the People original, with all the stars involved each singing a line from the R.E.M. classic.

With Cowell’s involvement, “Everybody Hurts” aims more at a British audience than an American one, as several contestants from Cowell’s U.K. shows like The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent make appearances, including Joe McElderry and X Factor judge Cheryl Cole, and members of Brit boy bands Take That (including Robbie Williams). JLS and Westlife. Rounding out Cowell’s crew are Mika, Kylie Minogue, James Morrison, Michael Buble and James Blunt.

Check out photos of Justin Timberlake, Bruce Springsteen, Madonna and more stars from Hope for Haiti Now.

As Rolling Stone reported yesterday, producers Quincy Jones, Lionel Richie and RedOne rounded up 100-plus stars in a Los Angeles studio for a re-recording of “We Are the World” that will also raise money to help those struck by the earthquake in Haiti. So far, the entertainment industry has helped raise at least $64 million thanks largely to the “Hope For Haiti Now” telethon."

It may seem churlish to compain about sixty-four mill being raised by posturing egomaniacs but fuck it, let the fabulously wealthy pay more tax, instead of giving their "time" in the hope of shifting more product, let the UN and the MFI and the World Bank establish a global Emergency Fund and the personnel and materiel necessary to storm in and blitz Disaster wherever he strikes. We will need one. Fuck me, if the survival of the damaged and damned depends upon the squeaky voice and the scrawny gyrations of the buck-toothed mutant, Kylie Minogue or the faux blue collar gruntings of Bruce Springsteen or, God fucking help us, the charitable instincts of the grotesque gabshite Simon Callow then we are all doomed to drown in shit. The idea that we may only respond to our fellows' plights if, in exchange for our money, we receive some discordant, atonal anthem by the dregs of showbusiness is so obscene as to curdle the milk of human kindness, Fuck off Cowell, fuck off SUBO, go back and stuff your face in Dumbarton and fuck off showbusiness, is there nothing, no sorrow which you cannot bend into a photo-opportunity? Speaking of which, the vile Cowell was energised by a 'phone call from our friend, the great warmongering humanitarian, Gordon Snot. Odd how we have billions to spend Chilcotting the Iraqis and Afghanis, yet need record sales to help the Haitians. It is probably the right thing for the country. And the world. We are the world.

Bob Dylan at the Concert for Bangla George,N.Y., 1971