This catman cohen thing is the weirdest, strangest, worst piece of lyricism and stock midi music I’ve ever heard in my life, and yet there’s a certain following to the guy. He’s like Daniel Johnston’s untalented step brother.

Here’s the youtube quote:

“Mysterious CATMAN COHEN presents a disturbing video based upon the title song from his first CD. In a society obsessed with a vacuous, indulgent Cult of Celebrity, Catman calls for the resurrection of neglected heroes (nurses, firemen, teachers, police, soldiers, etc). Directed by Jonathan Joffe, “How I Want to Die” is a musical/visual metaphor inspired by JD Salinger’s renowned novel, “A Catcher in the Rye.”"

Here’s the xanga and catman cohen youtube music video for “How I Want to Die”:

Here’s another one called Fluffle-O:

Some msnbc gossip column tells the tale of Prince humiliating Paris Hilton on stage while performing his reoccurring gig at the Rio hotel in Las Vegas.

“A “delighted” Hilton scampered onto the stage and the “Purple Rain” singer handed the wanna-be-pop star the microphone and told the audience, “Let’s see if she can really sing,” a source told the mag. An angry and humiliated Hilton stormed offstage — and left the club two songs later…”

Needless to say, Prince is a genius.

Just found a great cure for the mondays (someone has a case of them right now). It’s a flash painting of Bob Dylan, entirely constructed by the musicians lyrics. Turn the volume up, and kick this monday back. Link.

Arctic Monkeys are going strong with sophomore effort, Favourite Worst Nightmare. BBC reports the album has sold about 85,000 copies on it’s release day and has been going strong ever since, making it a top contender for the year’s best selling record. Of course, the success isn’t even comparable to the band’s sales of its first record, Whatever People Say I am, That’s What I’m Not, which sold 360,000 copies in its first week of release in 2006. But overall, the monkeys are doing fine.

I serve you again with the video for Brianstorm, Arctic Monkeys’ new single:

Now that’s what I call a comeback: Tom Green Raps for Too $hort on youtube:

Beirut just released a new video for Elephant Gun, directed by Alma Harel. It has people in elephant masks dancing in the midst of a colorful pastiche. Very nice:

Inspired by J.K. Rowling’s popular book series, Harry and the Potters is an indie “wizard rock” band, heading from Norwood, MA. The group consists of brothers Joe (19) and Paul (27) DeGeorge, who dress and claim to be the book’s titular character, while each bears a passable resemblance to a certain staged wizard (Joe being Harry of year four, while Paul is Harry of year seven).

Harry and the Potters have three self-released albums by now (Harry and the Potters, Voldemort Can’t Stop the Rock, and The Power of Love), where they sing original tunes with titles like “My Teacher is a Werewolf” and “The Wrath of Hermione”, from the boy wizard’s perspective. Strumming their guitars and muttering lyrics like “Draco Malfoy, what’s your problem, all your friends think you’re rad, cause you treat me so bad”, the brothers sensibly combine broomsticks with Blink-182.

During last summer, the duo went on a special “Summer Reading & Rocking Tour”, where they appeared in libraries across the US accompanied by friends Draco and the Malfoys, whom they simultaneously spread the gospels of D.I.Y. garage-punk and the Order of the Phoenix with, causing sensation within hyperactive third graders and teenagers in homemade Grffyindor t-shirts. Here’s a youtube video of Harry and the Potters performing at the Denver Public Library:

This weekend selection will feature some ahead of its time, sparkling electronic delights.

We’ll start our journey with producer extraordinaire Giorgio Moroder, who’s known for his innovative electronic disco, unique production work for the likes of Donna Summer and for his powerful soundtracks for movies such as “Midnight Express”. 1977’s “From Here to Eternity”, is taken from an album carrying the same name, and featuring production elements that became widely used, just about 15 years later. Check out the stunning video and song here:

We’ll move on to Space, which was a pioneering French electronic music trio active in the late 70s. The album Magic Fly, which is widely considered to be their best work, was released in ’77, and was pretty adventurous for those times and naturally slanted at the disco market which was very popular back then. Check out the video for their biggest hit “Magic Fly”, which captured precisely the mood of 70s’ cosmos and interstellar trips vision.

Our last intergalactic treat is a tune performed by the groundbreaking Japanese trio, the Yellow Magic Orchestra. YMO started in the mid 70s as a studio project which aspired to fuse oriental exotica with modern electronics. However, their first album, with its cutting edge production, became very popular, and the studio project grew into a full fledged touring band and career for its three members (One of them is the famous Ryuuichi Sakamoto). Making emanate use of new synthesizers, samplers, digital and computer recording technology as it became available, their popularity and influence extended way beyond Japan and they are highly regarded as pioneers of electronic music, and continue to be remixed and sampled by many, even today. Check out their brilliant live performance and stage setting of their 1980 masterpiece, “Riot in Lagos”, here:

This nice mashup by lobsterdust is all the rage on youtube right now. It combines Fergie’s vocals for “Glamorous” and music from The Fray’s “She Is” into this one youtube video:

NME has a tip about a free song download from electronic mavericks Kraftwerk. The song, Radioactivity, is given away for free here, as a part of a campagne against nuclear reprocessing plants in Japan (Rokkasho-mura).