Pitchfork

When you're an organization helping the victims of a humanitarian crisis, getting upstaged by an even worse disaster really has no upside. On one hand, you lose the attention of a fickle public. On the other hand, now there's a second crisis and, mathematically speaking, the world sucks twice as much.

Waxploitation Records released a benefit compilation last year starkly titled Genocide in Sudan to raise money for-- well, what it says on the cover. Now, with world charity dollars flocking to tsunami aid, label founder Jeff Antebi has organized a celebrity auction on eBay to try to continue his support for UN and Unicef work in Sudan. Musicians including Dizzee Rascal, Yoko Ono, the Donnas, Jurassic 5, David Sylvian, and Wilco have signed copies of their own albums or of the benefit CD for the auction; others have autographed rarer items, such as a songbook from Patti Smith, a To the 5 Boroughs skateboard signed by all three Beastie Boys plus Mix Master Mike, and (collector alert!) a vinyl test pressing from an unspecified Will Oldham record, which Oldham not only signed but also inscribed with the final stanza of Ted Hughes's eerie poem "Examination At The Womb-Door".

The first set of auction items ended yesterday, but for a variety of reasons, including both the need to make sure donations meet UN Refugee Agency standards (which can't be that high if freakin' King Diamond posters qualify; come on, guys) and Antebi's continued diligence getting other donors on board, a literal plethora of items remain to be both auctioned off over the next week or so and posted in the future, including swag from Skinny Puppy, DJ Danger Mouse, the Cardigans, Fischerspooner, Weezer, and Guided By Voices.