REFUGEE RELIEF UPDATE

The grass-roots effort to get U.S. rockers to help the War Child charity for Yugoslavia is bringing in an odd assortment of allies. To the initial list of independent-level punk and techno acts that signed on via New York publicist Michelle Ferguson, now add former teen-pop idol David Cassidy. The “Partridge Family” star and his wife, Sue, read about the campaign in last week’s Pop Eye and came forward to offer a song they’d co-written.

Sue Cassidy, who is among the organizers of the independent music conference Eat’m in Las Vegas next month, is now recruiting artists to participate in a recording of the ballad “Message to the World.”

“We wrote this song in 1990 and it’s just sitting there,” says Cassidy. “My family was wiped out in the Holocaust and I want to make a difference.”

The couple previously donated a song titled “Stand and Be Proud” to the Rebuild L.A. organization following the 1992 riots. The recording, featuring 2,000 local choir members, got simultaneous airing on radio stations across the country but had little commercial success. This time she hopes to have name artists involved and has been speaking with producer Ross Robinson, who works with Korn and Limp Bizkit.

Meanwhile, members of the San Francisco techno community are making plans for a rave to help the refugees. The group Dub Tribe, DJ Nrsha and XLR8R magazine are spearheading the effort.

Ferguson has also donated 10 unique packages created by Brian Eno, one of the key forces in England’s War Child organization, for a fund-raising Internet auction. The boxes, each with spray-painted outer art by Eno, contain a CD with tracks by Tricky, Portishead, Massive Attack, Cornershop and others, a piece of original art by Damian Hurst, a Polaroid photo taken by Anton Corbijn and a section of wallpaper designed by David Bowie. Bids will be taken May 13-17 via the Tunes.com Web site.