Some music happenings:

Lots of music singles for Haiti. There is the Hope for Haiti with a bunch of artists. Lionel Richie got a bunch of celebrities together to remake We Are The World (“flashes of Quincy”). (Which still won’t be as good as the Band Aid’s Do The Know It’s Chirstmas or the less popular but still amazing version by Gram Aid.) Simon Cowel put together a star studded remake of Everybody hurts. And last, but not least, is Shane MacGowan and his bat-shit crazy partner are covering I Put A Spell On You also with celebrity backing.

AA Bondy is the singer-songwriter/indie-ballad type that Norah should be all over. He gets a lot of plays on my ipod because he is the first artist alphabetically and gets covered a lot on Rollo & Grady, but I mention him now cause he has a session available at Daytrotter.

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings are coming out with a new album and are giving away their first single.

Adam Bones, of the late The Late Nights fame, is trying to play South By Southwest. You can help him by watching his video.

While they may not be as cool as WuTang/Beatles, here are a couple new things worth checking out.

• New She & Him album coming in March.   Or give a listen over at the Hype Machine.
• Sub Pop released a collection of mp3s that include a very funny standup one from Eugene Mirman.
• If anyone’s a big a fan of Danger Mouse as I am, you can check out the new collaboration with Shin’s frontman, James Mercer, called Broken Bells.  They are giving away a sample song on the site.
• Not sure how long this band has been around, but I just heard about  the Cave Weddings, so its new to me.  Pretty awesome.
• Drive-By Truckers have a new album.

While it’s not Rachel’s White Rabbits, Frightened Rabbit is a band with a highly anticipated release for 2010 that looks like it is going to deliver on its expectations with songs like these.  I do get a kick out of bands that still somehow sound good with a Scottish accent.

Another band on that list, Spoon, has their new album streaming on NPR for now.

Most of you have probably heard this already, but Neil Diamond has a holiday album with a cover of Adam Sandler’s Hanukkah Song.  Besides the general strangeness of covering the song, it is very bizarre that he feels the need to change “tom cruise isn’t, but I think his agent is” to “…but Jesus Christ is.”  Also bizarre that he felt the needed to say “don’t smoke your marijuanica.”  But if that wasn’t enough, he does a song called “Cherry, Cherry Christmas” where he takes the names of all his popular songs and inserts them into a new song about the holidays.  You can check them out at the hype machine or his myspace.

But there’s more!

• Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings just released a new 45, called “Ain’t No Chimneys in the Projects.”  And in the spirit of the season, are giving away the mp3 of it for free through their website.
• One of my favorite blogs, Soul-Sides, is giving away a mixtape of Aretha Franklin songs.
• While not a holiday song, it would be a great gift for me: White Stripes Live dvd “Under the Great White Northern Lights.”  You can now see the full version of “Let’s Shake Hands” on their myspace.
• This might be a stretch, but Christmas just came early for a couple bands.  They just released all the inductees for this the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year.   For once, I am happy with all of the picks: ABBA, the Hollies, Genesis, Jimmy Cliff, and The Stooges.