NEW YORK, March 18, (Agencies): Top names in indie rock including The National, Grizzly Bear and Courtney Barnett will cover the Grateful Dead on a giant album to raise money to fight HIV/AIDS.

“Day of the Dead,” a five-CD set that will come out worldwide May 20 and be followed by a limited-edition vinyl edition, is the latest project to benefit the Red Hot Organization which raises awareness and fights the effects of HIV/AIDS worldwide.

Brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National organized the album, saying that the Grateful Dead, the legendary hippy-era jam band, had a massive impact on them as they were growing up in Ohio.

“The brothers were drawn not just to the Dead’s songwriting, but also to the detail, spontaneity and depth in the instrumentation,” a statement announcing the album said Thursday.

The album is divided into three themes — thunder, lightning and sunshine — and closes with Dead guitarist Bob Weir joining The National on “I Know You Rider,” a blues standard that the San Francisco band regularly played in concert.

Among other highlights, Bruce Hornsby — a singer who has frequently performed with the Dead — collaborates with DeYarmond Edison, the predecessor band to introspective folk rockers Bon Iver.

Flamboyant

Other major names include the ethereal-voiced Anohni, best known for Anthony and the Johnson; flamboyant psychedelic rockers The Flaming Lips; Kurt Vile — who performs with grunge godfather J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr — as well as Stephen Malkmus of 1990s indie rock icons Pavement.

Grammy-winning folk revivalists Mumford & Sons will perform one of the Dead’s best-known songs, “Friend of the Devil,” and alternative rockers Wilco will also team up with Weir.

The Grateful Dead were one of the most influential bands that emerged from the 1960s counterculture, developing an unprecedented relationship with fans who would avidly travel from show to show.

The Grateful Dead — whose most famous member, Jerry Garcia, died in 1995 — last year performed in California and Chicago what they said would be their final shows, although most members keep touring under the name Dead and Company.

The Dessner brothers earlier organized a 2009 compilation for the Red Hot Organization, “Dark Was the Night,” that focused on American roots music and also brought in major indie rockers.

That album raised more than $1.5 million, the organization said.

The charity’s first album, 1990’s “Red, Hot and Blue,” focused on covers of Cole Porter and produced hits for U2 and Neneh Cherry.

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LONDON: The son of former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren is to burn his 5 million pound ($7 million) collection of punk memorabilia after saying the subversive music genre had been appropriated by the mainstream.

The anarchic Sex Pistols band popularised punk music through songs such as ‘God Save the Queen’, which attacked the British monarch with lyrics including: “she ain’t no human being, there is no future in England’s dreaming”.

“Rather than a movement for change, punk has become like a museum piece or a tribute act,” Joe Corre, whose mother is fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, said in an emailed statement.

The Sex Pistols formed in 1975 and sparked controversies galore, with their appearances often resulting in chaos. The BBC refused to air the 1977 song “God Save The Queen”, released during Queen Elizabeth’s Silver Jubilee.

Punk rock has been increasingly brought into the mainstream over recent years and a series of events under the banner ‘Punk.London’ is being held in London to celebrate its history, backed by the British Library and the National Lottery.

Exhibitions, gigs, films and talks will take place, with organisers describing the genre as “a rallying call for direct action”.

But Corre, who co-founded the lingerie brand Agent Provocateur, said he would burn his entire collection of punk memorabilia on Nov 26, the 40th anniversary of the release of the Sex Pistols’ debut single “Anarchy in the UK”, bemoaning what he called a general “malaise” in Britain.

“People don’t feel they have a voice anymore. The most dangerous thing is that they have stopped fighting for what they believe in,” he said.