For Mardi Gras this year (February 5th, 2008), OK Go released ‘You’re Not Alone’, a five-song digital EP featuring New Orleans brass band Bonerama (as in TROMbone, of which there are four in the band). All proceeds from this project, available exclusively at iTunes, will benefit members of New Orleans’ music community. People like R&B legend Al “Carnival Time” Johnson, who are continuing to struggle to rebuild their homes and lives almost three years after the levy failures that followed Hurricane Katrina, the costliest hurricane in US history and one of the deadliest.

The project was born when OK Go singer Damian Kulash teamed up with Bonerama to play a New Orleans benefit concert last year. Completely blown away by Bonerama’s fiercely indelicate sound, Kulash knew it would mesh perfectly with his band’s bombastic rock. They reconvened, and spent Katrina’s second anniversary at Piety Street Studios, deep in New Orlean’s Upper 9th Ward, recording what would become ‘You’re Not Alone’. Together, they re-interpret three tracks from OK Go’s most recent album, Oh No: “A Million Ways,” “It’s A Disaster” and “Oh Lately It’s So Quiet.” A pair of covers – David Bowie’s “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide” and Bob Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released” – round out the collection.

OK Go and Bonerama continue to play together live, and their benefit concerts in New Orleans and Washington, D.C. have brought out people like Brendan Canty (Fugazi), Russ Feingold (the coolest guy in the senate), and President Bill Clinton’s Press Secretary Joe Lockhart, who personally raised $18K for New Orleans relief from friends he brought to one show.

Proceeds from ‘You’re Not Alone’ will go to Sweet Home New Orleans, an organization dedicated to helping repatriate and support the thousands of local musicians who were scattered by Katrina, as well as building a new Habitat For Humanity home for Al “Carnival Time” Johnson. Johnson wrote “Carnival Time,” the unofficial anthem of Mardi Gras, and his haunting vocals can be heard on ‘You’re Not Alone’s’ “I Shall Be Released.” His Lower 9th Ward home was washed off its foundation by the levee failures during Hurricane Katrina and later demolished by the city without his knowledge or consent. He has been living in Houston, TX for the past two years.

“New Orleans is one of the last places in America where music is truly a fundamental part of everyday life,” said Kulash. “People get together on the weekends and parade through the streets just playing songs; 12-year-old-kids learn funk on the tuba; everyone dances. Life elsewhere in the world simply isn’t as celebratory. If we allow the culture of New Orleans to die by leaving its musicians marooned around the country, America will have lost one of its great treasures.”

Bonerama with Damian Kulash are set to appear on David Letterman February 11.

Buy – ‘You’re Not Alone’ on iTunes

Bonerama Official Website
OK Go Official Website