Sharp Notes

DO-GOODERS EVERYWHERE: Take heart, good people, in knowing that your local musicians and music companies, intent on making the world a better place, are participating in all sorts of worthwhile causes. For instance, take Southern-rocking favorites the Drive-By Truckers. Just in time of the holidays, the band is auctioning copies of its Decoration Day CD, signed and personalized to the buyer, with the proceeds going to the buyer's choice of charities. The autographed disc -- featuring tracks such as "Heathens," "Your Daddy Hates Me" and "Loaded Gun in the Closet" -- makes the perfect stocking stuffer. E-mail jenn@drivebytruckers.com for information.

But, of course, the best charity starts at home. That's why Don Condescending, leader of smarty-pants new-wavers the Shut-Ups, has designated his band's Nov. 14 show a benefit for the college fund of Zoe Condescending, his 5-month-old daughter. The 10 High gig, he says, will be a "Baby Release Party" modeled after the CD release show for the Shut-Ups' most recent album, It Hurts to Be Seen. "People seem to like the CD," Papa Condescending says, "but nothing opens the pocketbook like a cute baby."

Somewhat counter-intuitively, anyone arriving at the show before 11 p.m. and carrying a baby picture gets $2 off the $5 cover (that's no way to raise money). But then, Condescending adds, anyone who donates $10,000 or more gets to be an honorary grandparent, "with similar visiting privileges."

We wish the best of luck to young Zoe for her future financial independence and send this message to her enterprising dad (and anyone else thinking along the same lines): If we didn't really like your band, there's no way we'd indulge this cheap publicity stunt.

DAEMON GOES RAD: It's not quite charity, but Amy Ray's Atlanta-based nonprofit label, Daemon Records, is stepping up to try and fight the good fight. Though Ray has long been politically outspoken in her own music, Daemon is now embracing overtly political music as never before by partnering with AK Press, an anarchist co-operative that publishes radical books and music. With Daemon's distribution help, AK is releasing a series of collections by lefty folk favorites -- the first two, from Utah Phillips and David Rovics, arrive Dec. 9.

Phillips' record, originally recorded in 1991, features songs and poems relating to the Santa Claus-bearded hobo's opposition to the first Gulf War. Timing seems right to revisit that one. And Rovics' album is a best-of compilation of the topical folkie's live recordings. One song is sure to get Amy Ray crossed off the Christmas party invite list of Atlanta's business elite: "Drink of the Death Squads," in which Rovics tells the tale of a certain beverage manufacturer's connection to union-busting head-busting down in Colombia. One that'll get Rovics crossed off our not-just-a-knee-jerk-lefty-with-no-moral-compass list: "Jenin," in which he romanticizes the suicide bomber as a freedom fighter with a valid mission, rather than simply a brainwashed kid.

KEEPING 'TRACKS: Used to be that when bands got songs picked up to appear on soundtrack recordings, it meant you could hear the songs in actual movies. These days, the spectrum of what gets to have a soundtrack has moved way past mere film, and home-towners are firmly on-board for the soundtracking of America. While India.Arie has a new song, "Eyes of the Heart," on the soundtrack to the Cuba Gooding film Radio, the Swimming Pools Q's recently had their 17-year-old song, "More Than One Heaven," show up -- alongside tracks by Bob Dylan, the Stooges and Sheb Wooley -- on the soundtrack to a cable TV show: "Steven Spielberg Presents Taken," a SciFi Channel mini-series. Even more unusual, turntablist DJ Shortee appears on the soundtrack to the videogame, XIII. Meanwhile, Mastodon's new Remission Limited Deluxe Edition is a sort-of inverted soundtrack. The re-released disc features a bonus DVD that provides video -- a live show taped at the Masquerade last year -- as accompaniment to the audio.