(RED), the famous Aids awareness organization, is joining forces with some of its BFF’s to throw a benefit concert. “Hal Willner Presents: An Evening with Gavin Friday and Friends” will feature performances from longtime friends and (RED) supporters like Bono, The Edge and Scarlett Johannson, as well as Shane McGowan and Courtney Love, who, if anything, will help sell tickets by appearing as toothless trainwrecks. The event, to be held at the Carnegie Hall in New York City, will also feature Laurie Anderson, Antony, Elizabeth Ashley, Adam Clayton, Andrea Corr, Flo & Eddie, Joel Grey, Bill Frisell, Guggi, Scarlett Johansson, Lydia Lunch, Patrick McCabe, Maria McKee, Eric Mingus, Larry Mullen, Jr., JG Thirlwell, Martha Wainwright, Rufus Wainwright and Chloe Webb, as well as surprise guests. Tickets go on sale at 11am (here), so get your AMEX out, as you do not want to miss Kanye inevitably telling the Wainwright Siblings that they are good, but their Dad made one of the best albums of all time. Hopefully (RED) will have Courtney Love live tweet the event.

In a just published New York Magazine story on Pete Yorn and Scarlett Johanssen’s new Break Up album, the following sentence appears in the second paragraph:

In the early weeks of January 2007, the pair met at an unassuming studio in Los Angeles and recorded Break Up, a collection of boy-meets-girl-girl-ruins-boy duets in the tradition of Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot, Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra, and Lou Reed and Nico.

And what tradition would that be? According to Yorn, the tradition of being cool. “Serge Gainsbourg, Brigitte Bardot—they’re cool, I love them … Brigitte Bardot … Scarlett Johansson! Just a total chain reaction,” he says in the interview. We would have gone with, “Serge Gainsbourg, Brigitte Bardot—their album was nuts and they boned … Brigitte Bardot … Scarlett Johansson! I had to at least try,” because that would’ve made more sense. But we don’t have ScarJo’s number either, so maybe we should shut up.

To read further on Gainsbourg’s sonic sexual exploits, check The FADER’s recent Reheater of his and Jane Birkin’s classic and just reissued Histoire de Melody Nelson.

According to Pitchfork, who passed along the news from those graph-lovers at USA TODAY, more Scarlett Johansson music is on the way. This time around, the starlet teamed up with Pete Yorn to record a batch of duets inspired by yet another music icon: Serge Gainsbourg.
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We’ve long become accustomed to laughing at “actors who sing” — from Kevin Bacon to Scarlett Johansson, they’ve made it easy for us. Still, there is hope for the modern renaissance man: stars like Zooey Deschanel have proven that sometimes the music transcends the persona.
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