Crafts for a Cause is an effort started by Binki Shapiro to rally artists together to raise money for Haiti by contributing custom-made artwork. Among the participating artists, Spike Jonze, Davendra Banhart, Cedric Bixler of The Mars Volta (pictured above with the skate deck he made), Conner Oberst of Bright Eyes, No Doubt, and the list goes on…
There will be an online auction, beginning on March 15. For more information and updates, follow the Crafts for a Cause website.
I sort of think that when you’ve been a music fan and collector of Rolling Stone magazine from the age of like thirteen, walking into a room, right into Omar Rodriguez-Lopez deep in animated conversation with David Fricke is like stepping into another dimension. And that’s exactly where I ended up when I went backstage as a guest of drummer Thomas Pridgen and hung out with Grammy-award-winning progressive rock band The Mars Volta after their show at the Roseland Ballroom in NYC last night.
I won’t get crazy with every minute detail. But I will say that I met everyone in the band, including Omar and his longtime bandmate and Mars Volta frontman, Cedric Bixler-Zavala.
Special thanks to Thomas, who is not only a phenomenal drummer but also a genuinely nice person, for welcoming me into his little Mars Volta family. Here’s a photo to commemorate the experience that came out real awesome, of my legs and Omar’s legs:
By the way, the actual show was amazing. Here is a setlist:
Son Et Lumiere
Intertiac E.S.P.
Goliath
Cotopaxi
Roulette Dares
Viscera Eyes
Halo of Nembutals
Eunuch Provocateur
Ilyena
Teflon
Drunkship of Lanterns
Luciforms
The Widow
Wax Simulacra
And if you don’t know who Thomas Pridgen is? You should! Check out this video from YouTube.
