Black Midi, Tame Impala, Erykah Badu, Weyes Blood and Sunn O))) are among 50 artists scheduled to perform in NTS’s 24-hour livestream concert dubbed Remote Utopias on Saturday, May 2 (at noon London time, 4 a.m. LA time, 7 p.m. Shanghai time). It will also feature performances by Deb Never, Four Tet, JME, JPEGMAFIA, Rejjie Snow, Skrillex, Blood, Yves Tumor, Khruangbin. The livestream by the online radio will raise funds for The Global Foodbanking Network, a charity providing food to those in need around the globe. The stream will concurrently broadcast two live “stages”, aiming to emulate the setup of a music festival. Some artists are expected to perform on the live-stream, Badu will lead a guided meditation during her live-stream and JME will present a radio show about his favourite video game music.

Gay club The Chateau from south-east London recently live-streamed a version of their consistently chaotic club night U OK Hun, making "a massive hot mess party" with "go-go dancers, and rigging, with aerial performances”. Harry Gay, a support worker at the LGBTQ+ homeless support charity The Outside Project, started up Queer House Party with help from his roommates. The premise was simple – they would stream sets from their house-share in exchange for tips. Thousands of people soon joined in, and it’s now a weekly event. Gal Pals, queer dance party for womxn, trans and non-binary people, have hosted three fortnightly parties so far, and the plan is to continue until the end of lockdown and beyond. The people behind Knickerbocker have also gone online with "shonky and anarchic" party. NME reports at lengths about the LGBTQ-streams...

Post Malone’s Nirvana tribute livestream on YouTube last weekend raised more than $500,000 for coronavirus relief, CNN reports. Google matched $2 for each $1 donation. The event raised $500,000, including Google's match. Over $4.3 million has been raised in total for the United Nations Foundation's Covid-19 Solidarity Response Fund for The World Health Organization.

TikTok has announced an in-app feature that allows users to donate to a number of charities. Content creators can now embed ‘donation stickers’ within their videos and livestreams that will encourage users to donate funds to a selection of approved organisations. Facebook will soon allow artists to charge fans for access to livestreams hosted through the platform.

Apple's music creation software Garageband had nearly 13 million downloads from its add-on “Sound Library” since early February, and hundreds of thousands of free trial downloads of Garageband’s pricier siblings Logic Pro X and Final Cut Pro X, Rolling Stone reports. Apogee just experienced its most active month ever with its music-creation accessories including popular iOS and Mac products like HypeMic. Instruments manufacturer Roland has seen a spike as well, and Splice, which sells royalty-free samples and loops, has seen more than one million sound downloads a day. Instrument/gear seller Reverb is seeing extraordinarily high order volumes, outpacing even the amount of orders they see during the busy holiday season.

More than 400 of the UK’s leading artists, among them musicians Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, Rufus Wainwright, Jamie Cullum, Katie Melua, Stephen Hough, Terry Hall, Meera Syal, have signed a letter calling on the UK government to release funds to support the creative industries, Guardian reports. The artists warn that unless more is done the country could become “a cultural wasteland” because of the economic damage done during the Covid-19 outbreak. Find the letter text in full with list of signatories here.

Citizen DJ is an open-source hip-hop sample tool launched by the US The Library of Congress, where users will have access to a massive audio collection that dates back over a hundred years. A preview is currently available, and the full service will launch this summer. There will be three ways to access these sound files: an interface for searching by sound and metadata; a simple music-creation app that easily allows the collection to be remixed with hip-hop beats; and various “sample packs” full of thousands of clips from particular collections. It is LOC's Brain Foo’s intention to bring back the golden age of hip-hop sampling, but Citizen DJ will be available for use in other musical genres.

DaBaby has debuted at No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 with 'Blame It on Baby', with 124,000 equivalent album units in the USA last week, Billboard reports. Of those units, 110,000 were from steams, 12,000 from album sales, and 3,000 were in track equivalent units. 'Blame It on Baby' marks the eighth week in a row that an R&B/hip-hop project has led the Billboard 200, marking the longest such stretch in more than a year.

Nick Cave has launched a new livestream Bad Seed Teevee on YouTube, a 24-hour broadcast that will air concert footage, music videos, interviews and other rarities around the clock "for the foreseeable future".

Live Nation has updated its concert refund policy, enabling fans to get a full refund for the event no matter if it was cancelled or if it was postponed, New York Times reports. Fans who want a refund for a cancelled event, they will automatically receive a refund. If the show has been rescheduled, however, fans must request a refund within 30 days of the new show date being announced. Otherwise, tickets for the postponed event will be automatically valid for the new date. "Ticket Relief Plan" officially goes into effect on May 1, when ticket-holders will begin getting emails from Live Nation. Visit Live Nation's ticket refund website here.

"I hadn’t felt this much love for a new band in 20 years. That was both sad and disturbing. I’m not sure who it says what about, but regardless, I was head over heels in love with Big Thief" - ex-Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer said about his now-favorite band. This week he shared a cover of Big Thief’s 'Not', and in the video he is jamming out on an acoustic guitar, on both of his knees, and you can't even see his head while he sings. That's love and passion!

Based on financial documents reviewed by Forbes, Kanye West’s net worth has recently reached $1.26 billion dollars. It's a tremendous change - less than five years ago, West publicly announced himself to be $53 million in debt. After striking a deal with Adidas to expand his Yeezy apparel brand, his income skyrocketed. Last year alone, West’s Yeezy sneakers sold $1.3 billion, with West himself personally pocketing $140 million in royalties. On the music side, West’s recordings and publishing rights are valued at around $90 million.

Professional Spanish dancer Albert Garcia has not been able to dance freely, so he took the opportunity to dance in an empty street in Valencia while taking out the garbage. He says performing in the street felt like "pure freedom", adding the applause he got from his neighbours' balconies felt so warm, like the ones he got dancing in Berlin Staatsoper and La Scala in Milan. BBC reports on the heartwarming story.

Captain Tom Moore, UK war veteran who walked laps of his garden to raise money for the NHS, has become the oldest person ever to score a number one single in the UK, the UK Official Charts reports. At the age of 99, his duet with Michael Ball covering 'You'll Never Walk Alone' sold 82,000 copies, with proceeds going to the NHS Charities Together fund. Capt Tom's birthday is next Thursday, meaning he will still be number one when he turns 100. The Weeknd almost beat Captain Tom but in a gallant move, he asked his UK fans to support the aged.

Isaiah Rashad returns with 'Why Worry', his first new song in 4 years, a good slice of soul-sampling hip-hop; Sigur Rós’ Jónsi shared his hypnotic new song 'Exhale'; Elder dropped their new album 'Omens', containing a great atmospheric prog song 'Halcyon'; Johnny Flynn - who plays David Bowie in new movie 'Stardust' has released 'Good Ol' Jane', intended to sound like an early, lost Bowie song; iLe and Natalia Lafourcade play futuristic Latin music on 'En Cantos'; Ben Gibbard played a nice piano cover of Nirvana's 'All Apologies'; Earl Sweatshirt's first single of the new year is a lazy 'Whole World'; just a beautiful song 'It's Hard to be Human' by Lawrence Rothman, featuring guest vocals by Marissa Nadler and the MUSYCA Children Choir.

On Monday, Amoeba Music, the largest independent record store in the US, started a GoFundMe in hopes of drawing support from regular customers, not just in Los Angeles but national and international visitors. And fans reacted enthusiastically - in its first 10 hours up, $35,000 of the $400,000 goal had been raised, in four days $200,902 has been raised. Amoeba's co-owner Marc Weinstein said in Variety interview that their "main cause is to keep this thing going, at whatever cost. Honestly, it’s always been our mission since day one is to do this. We care about music more than anything and we care about musicians". There are three Amoeba Music record stores in California, and all three have been closed since mid-March.

The first of Travis Scott’s ‘Astronomical’ concerts within Fortnite had over 12.3 million concurrent players participating live, an all-time record. That means Scott beat the 10.7 million audience for Marshmello’s Fortnite concert in February 2019. Complex's journalist attended the show - "I tapped in tonight because I’m stuck inside with nothing better to do, but I’m surprised with how much fun this was. I could see myself going to one of these again when all of this is over" (although he got shot in the head by a teenager named Micah). Watch the show here (10 minutes).

Beyoncé has teamed up with Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s relief fund #startsmall to make a donation of $6m for mental health and other initiatives during the coronavirus outbreak, Yahoo! Lifestyle reports. Beyoncé said mental burdens were accelerating for people who can’t access basic necessities during the crisis. She also gave support to a range of charities providing those necessities, including food, water, cleaning supplies, medicines, face masks and personal hygiene items.

The Rolling Stones have released their first new single in eight years, 'Living In A Ghost Town', a sparse blues track. It references the coronavirus crisis, with Jagger singing: "Life was so beautiful, now we all got locked down / Feel like a ghost, living in a ghost town". The track was initially recorded a year ago in LA but was "finished in lockdown", with slightly revised lyrics.

Rapper Lil Dicky is celebrating the first anniversary of his animated short film 'Earth' by donating $800,000 to help combat climate change and contribute to COVID-19 relief, All Hip Hop reports. "The fight to save this planet isn't even close to over, and we're going to have to amplify our efforts way more to turn this thing around. Because pretty soon, it'll be too late" - Lil Dicky said, adding - "even though times have never been scarier with the COVID-19 pandemic, it has shown me something: that we can modify our day-to-day behavior to adapt to a crisis when it's right in front of us". Rapper and entrepreneur Sean "Diddy" Combs has linked with The National Bankers Association to launch a new platform "Our Fair Share" to help minority-owned small businesses get access to the second round of Paycheck Protection Program Funding, PR Newswire reports.

From Minecraft to Imvu and Fortnite, artists have increasingly been turning to the world of video games as a way to give fans a more immersive, digital show-going experience, Paper Magazine reports on the new trend. By using an avatar, attendees can navigate 3D environments and interact in virtual space. Comrade Massie, a creative lead at Boiler Room, is taking it yet another step further - he has been spending his time in quarantine recreating stages from childhood video games and turning them into virtual clubs where viewers can party alongside characters like Sonic and Zelda...

YouTube’s lo-fi hip-hop channels are becoming more popular than ever in time of the pandemic, not just as background music, but as ways to find community in a difficult time, The Verge reports. The lo-fi channel College Music has increased the number of subscribers to their channel by 40 percent over the last 28 days, with total channel views up by 46 percent. ChilledCow added 340,000 subscribers in March (compared to 160,000 in January). The lo-fi channel Nickolaas has seen "a significant" rise in views.

Warner Music Group is hosting a three-day streaming music event dubbed PlayOnFest that will stream concerts beginning this Friday (April 24, at noon Atlanta time, 6 p.m. Cairo time, midnight Shanghai time) for 72 hours straight, wrapping on April 26 - check out the schedule at MTV.com. Warner will feature some of the top acts in music, with Coldplay, Korn, Ed Sheeran, Green Day, Janelle Monae, Bruno Mars, David Guetta, Cardi B, The Flaming Lips, Lizzo, Twenty One Pilots, Panic! at the Disco, Slipknot, Weezer, Kaleo, Royal Blood, Paramore, Gary Clark Jr., Portugal. The Man, Lil Uzi Vert and more scheduled for the weekend. The event will feature recorded concerts taking place at some of the biggest stages in the world, as well as some unique performances as well. Warner will be while raising money for the Covid-19 Solidarity Response Fund. The entire run of shows can be viewed via Songkick's YouTube Channel.

A lovely article in Pitchfork about bands being humane in this time of coronavirus pandemic. Post-hardcore band Thursday had their tour cancelled, which left them with lots of T-shirts stockpiled to sell on tour. They began donating the fabric to grassroots sewing collectives to make face masks. They also started selling factory-made Thursday-branded facemasks on their website, with proceeds going toward masks for frontline healthcare workers. Emo band Taking Back Sunday put together its own benefit initiative, selling various merch items from their inventory at discounted prices to raise money for masks. Together, Thursday and Taking Back Sunday have funded over 4,500 masks for medical professionals. Psych-folk guitarist and songwriter Kendra Amalie turned her merch inventory into cloth masks, doing the cutting and sewing at home herself, and sending them to people who needed them in her local community. My Chemical Romance is selling fabric face masks to benefit MusiCares’ COVID-19 Relief Fund.

Erykah Badu's Quarantine Concert Series saw the singer and her band perform live from her Dallas home, playing a different set each time in the interactive live stream, Variety reports. Badu charged viewers directly - $1 for the first concert, $2 for the second, $3 for the third. The first two live streams together drew more than 100,000 viewers, which would put her gross in the low- to lower-middle six figures. Angel Olsen did a different thing - she performed a solo set from home to benefit her band and touring crew as well as a charity, MusiCares’ COVID-19 relief fund. The show had a mandatory $12 fee ($15 on the day of the show), filling her set with rarities and some new material.

Michael Stipe, Patti Smith, Cat Power, Rebecca Foon, Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ben Harper, Rain Phoenix and The Strokes bassist Nikolai Fraiture are slated to play Pathway to Paris’s 50th Anniversary Earth Day Festival on Sunday. Pathway will be livestreamed online via the organization’s Instagram page, on Sunday, April 26th (4 p.m. Haiti time, 9 p.m. Lagos time, 10 a.m. Monday Kiribati time).

Spotify has introduced a new feature Artist Fundraising Pick that allows artists to receive "tips" or donate money to charity, TechCrunch reports. Bands can pin a badge to the top of their Spotify profile, highlighting a fundraising destination where fans can send cash. As well as fundraising for themselves, artists can give money to charity or to road crews who are out of work while tours are on hold due to COVID-19.

Kanye West's charitable collaboration has partnered with Chic-fil-A to help Christian non-profit the Los Angeles Dream Center provide food and other items to those in need since March. This partnership has helped provide more than 14,000 meals every single day, 300,000 meals in total to the needy in Los Angeles, CBN reports. In similar news, Cash Money’s Bryan "Birdman" Williams has offered to pay the rent for people hit hard by the devasting coronavirus pandemic in New Orleans, All Hip Hop reports.

Deradoorian's 'Monk’s Robes' is just a beautiful and just slightly strange song by the singer-songwriter; 'No-One' is a psychedelic stadium-rock song by the everlasting Psychedelic Furs; Deerhoof demonstrate chaos control on 'Farewell Symphony', with a good video; Sex Swing share their new psychedelic noise track 'Skimmington Ride'; Moore Jewelry demonstrate noise-industrial rap on 'Look Alive'; Skullcrusher's 'Places/Plans' is a delicate piano and guitar ballad; the beautifully named Angelo De Augustine shared a new single, 'Santa Barbara' which he worked on with the beautifully voiced Sufjan Stevens; Chelsea Wolfe and members of Dillinger Escape Plan covered Ozzy Osbourne's 'Crazy Train' - it's different, and it's great, especially with her voice; 'Halogen Eye' by the O'Brother is a big alt-rock song designed for stadiums

Bob Dylan's original manuscripts for 'The Times They Are A-Changin', 'Lay Lady Lay' and 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' are currently in the hands of a memorabilia company, and fans are now being offered the chance to bid for the handwritten lyrics, Rolling Stone reports. 'The Times They Are A-Changin' is listed for a record high asking price of $2.2 million, 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' is listed for $1.2 million, and 'Lay Lady Lay' is the least expensive of the three items, as it's listed for $650,000. The auction also includes photos of the handwritten pages, which show where Dylan made amendments to his original song lyrics.