(antiMusic) Guitarist the Edge from the legendary Irish band U2 has teamed up with famed producer Bob Ezrin, Gibson Guitar and Guitar Center retail store to establish Music Rising, a charity that supplies instruments to New Orleans musicians affected by Hurricane Katrina.The guitarists first trip to New Orleans was in 1981 on a tour stop for U2s first album Boy and has become a regular visitor to the city. New Orleans is a crucible for great music, says the Edge. The idea that it would be just a place of history for music is awful to me. Coming from Dublin in the Seventies, when music was something you had to search out, I'd never dreamt that somewhere like New Orleans could exist. Music was coming out of the walls. It seemed not just a form of escapism, but like it was weaved into everybody's life.
Ezrin, who has produced albums for Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper, KISS and Janes Addiction, decided to create the program with the Edge to bring back the music that served as the life-blood for the city for so long. We both concluded instantly that the human disaster was indescribable, Ezrin says, but what was being wiped out at the same time was the culture of the entire region.
Music Rising plans to expand to reach local churches, marching bands and schools after every instrument that was lost in the disaster is replaced. Anyone interested in making a donation can do so at musicrising.org. - Trent McMartin
