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Mark Kozelek, it would seem, is a man with a heart of gold and a surplus of sweet swag lying about. How else to explain the Sun Kil Moon/Red House Painters master-melancholic's participation in yet another charity auction, his second this year?

July found the Koz selling off some old (blue?) guitars for the benefit of the American Red Cross and Midwestern flood victims, while this month Mark traded pick for pen and autographed a bunch of cool stuff to aid the West Memphis Three, the trio of then-teens believed wrongfully convicted of a 1993 triple homicide and imprisoned (and a favorite cause of more than a few musical types).

The auction runs from now until December 18 (bid here), and includes a number of CDs and LPs, a concert poster, and copies of the Nights of Passed Over lyrics book, all bearing Kozelek's signature. Proceeds go to the West Memphis Three's defense fund.

As if Mark weren't being generous enough already, he's also streaming the entirety of his covers/rarities collection The Finally LP on his MySpace right now. That set hits stores tomorrow (December 9) via Mark's own Caldo Verde imprint, and even the cows on the cover look kinda glum.

They're a Canadian band (Montreal!) of a certain size (six!), which makes Bell Orchestre a prime candidate for inclusion into the fold at Arts & Crafts, home to such large Canadian troupes as Broken Social Scene, the Hidden Cameras, and, er, honorary Canadians Los Campesinos!

As you might recall, Belle Orchestre is comprised of the Arcade Fire's Richard Reed Parry and Sarah Neufeld, plus Stefan Schenider and Pietro Amato of Jorane, Mike Feuerstack of snailhouse, and Kaveh Nabatian. The group will issue their as-yet-untitled follow-up to 2005's Recording a Tape the Colour of the Light early next year. They crafted the album with Tortoise's John McEntire at Chicago's Soma Electronic Music Studios.

Once their Arts & Crafts debut is out, the band will hit the road, hard. A few dates have emerged thus far, if that's the sort of thing that rings your proverbial bell.

This year has been an impressive one for the gents of Tokyo Police Club, what with the release of their debut LP Elephant Shell, lotsa big-time touring (including a stint with Weezer), and their recent Wisteria Lane residency as seen on "Desperate Housewives" (scope the clip here).

The Ontario outfit will cap the year as part of the "Jingle Bell Rock" tour of Canada, and get into the swing of 2009 early with a pretty expansive late winter tour of the States. TPC will also hit up CBS on Wednesday (December 10) for an apperance on "The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson".

Once the live stuff wraps, they'll split their time between crafting the follow-up to Elephant Shell and raiding the TiVo for the next program to plunder. May we suggest...

Brian Wilson will release a companion DVD to this year's California-themed album That Lucky Old Sun early next year. Also titled That Lucky Old Sun, the DVD features a full live performance of the album at Capitol Studios and a feature-length documentary called Going Home, about the making of the record and Wilson's return to Capitol Records.

The DVD also features a track-by-track commentary on the live performance from Wilson and songwriting partner Scott Bennett, behind-the-scenes footage from the That Lucky Old Sun recording sessions, Wilson's "Black Cab Sessions" set, a performance and audience Q&A recorded for Yahoo! Music, and an interview with Zooey Deschanel as part of MySpace's "Artist on Artist" series.

Extensive commentary and interviews, huh? That should be interesting.

Capitol/EMI will release the That Lucky Old Sun DVD on January 27.

Wilson's only scheduled appearance right now is at the premiere of the yet-to-open GRAMMY Museum's "An Evening With" series on January 15. Museum Executive Director Robert Santelli will interview Wilson, and then Wilson will perform "a few songs," according to a press release.

Photo by Michael Alan Goldberg

Déjà vu? In January of this year, we reported that Cursive would be playing a few wintertime gigs to break up the sessions for their follow-up to 2006's Happy Hollow. Well, here we are some 11 months later, and Cursive have announced that they're playing a few wintertime gigs to, you know, break up the studio sessions for the next Cursive album.

A recent newsletter does indeed mention that Cursive are "finishing up the new record" and a note on their website suggests the mixing is complete but a few tweaks have yet to be made, so you should probably expect only a few more tours (namely a promised "nationwide" jaunt and a make-up trip to Europe) before the new Cursive long-player hits your stereo.

Photo by Kathryn Yu

(Of) Montreal? Not in this weather, man. Kevin Barnes and crew have lined up a bunch of new dates this year and next in slightly more hospitable climes that the city for which they are sorta named. There are gigs aplenty in New Zealand, Australia, the American South, and even one apiece in Hawaii and California. There are some Japanese gigs in the mix as well, though it's not exactly balmy in those parts at present. They should clearly call that particular leg the Cold Lamping tour.

Though they're currently in Florida deconstructing pop with their pals in the Fiery Furnaces, Of Montreal will make their way northward a little later this month for a Brooklyn gig (which will serve as the release party for that fancy "Cause We Were Virgins to Your Kisses" 7"/DVD single), a DJ set from Kevin Barnes, and a December 18 stop at the "Late Show With David Letterman". You'll recall that producer Jon Brion's remixes of some key Skeletal Lamping cuts are due digitally January 6 and January 27 on CD and LP from Polyvinyl.

The Tennessee festival landscape will get a little larger next year with the inaugural Big Ears, a new fest spearheaded by one of the founders of Bonnaroo.

Big Ears is a much smaller affair than Bonnaroo, though, focusing on more experimental music and featuring "art installations, exhibitions, performance art, seminars with artists, and interactive experiences," according to a press release.

Big Ears takes place February 6-8 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Its lineup includes Antony and the Johnsons, Matmos, Philip Glass, Fennesz, Michael Gira, Negativland (doing their "live" radio show "It's All in Your Head"), and Pauline Oliveros. In addition to doing a solo set, Fennesz will also perform in a trio with Mark Linkous and Scott Minor of Sparklehorse.

Perhaps you're familiar with Twitter, the microblogging service popular with internet celebrities, brevity fans, and Barack Obama. It's a quick and easy thing to get into, and it's catching on; Shaq's doing it (and doing it well, too), Britney's doing it, even the guy from My Chemical Romance, apparently.

One of the more popular celeb Twitters was the one that everybody thought belonged to rapper-turned-"pop-artist" Kanye West. West was never the most prolific Twitterer (he prefers to express himself on his blog), but he chimed in occasionally about the election and offered the occasional update on the progress of 808s and Heartbreaks before it dropped a few weeks ago. Or so we thought.

Oh, and he also apparently proclaimed his ignorance of one Stephen Colbert, host of the "Colbert Report" and instigator of a very serious beef with Mr. West.

Too bad that Twitter account wasn't actually Kanye's, it turns out. Posting on his blog this weekend, Kanye wrote, "I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THIS... THIS IS NOT ME!!!!!" above an image of the Twitter page as it stood in the wake of the Colbert tweet. And as of this morning, http://twitter.com/kanyewest/ has been deleted.

In hindsight, I suppose it was foolish to think that Kanye could ever keep it to just 140 characters.

In other news from the weird world of West, People's Style Watch is reporting that he's seeking a high-profile fashion internship (for himself!) in advance of the launch of his Past Tell clothing line next year. And last week, he posted on his blog a piece of what looks like a rough sketch of the plans for his next big-ass stage show. Better get your doodling right before you step to Donatella, Ye.

Photos by Francis Chung

All sorts of stars aligned over the weekend as the C86-indebted Love Is All rocked at least one vintage 1987 Washington Redskins sweatshirt and proceeded to work fans at DC's Rock and Roll Hotel into a frenzy. Worked a little too hard, it would seem: one high-five-happy attendee had to be escorted from the premises for getting a little carried away with his merry-making. Who could blame him, though, when a band has hooks this big?

Love Is All's travels in support of A Hundred Things Keep Me Up at Night continue in Boston tonight (December 8).

Love Is All

Photo by Lisa Corson

It's their party, and they'll experimentally-rock if they want to. Brooklyn's Oneida rang up a few kindred spirits and invited them to New York City for Oneida Fest One, an evening of music on all three stages of the Knitting Factory club. Parts and Labor, Sightings, Oakley Hall, Knyfe Hyts, Dirty Faces, Cave, Pterodactyl, Neptune, Brava Spectre, and Oneida themselves have all RSVPed for the big bash, which takes place December 13.

And while Oneida is kicking off one series, we'd be remiss not to mention the other one they already have in progress: the Thank Your Parents trilogy. The second installment, the follow-up to this summer's Preteen Weaponry, is due early next year from Jagjaguwar.