Excellent Online

Justin Bieber is the new teen fad and over at reddit, someone posted a link to one of this songs playing at 1/8th the speed of the original and it oddly sounds like Sigur Ros.

I know what you're thinking.  If you slow down Justin Bieber and it actually sounds like Sigur Ros, then speeding up Sigur Ros must sound like Justin Bieber right?  Not quite.

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and the RIAA are lobbying Congress to mandate that FM receivers should be put into cell phones, PDA's and other portable devices. 

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) is the group of device makers and they'll have to add support for all these FM receivers has a slight problem with it.  CEA president Gary Shapirio:  "The backroom scheme of the NAB and RIAA to have Congress mandate broadcast radios in portable devices, including mobile phones, is the height of absurdity."

At first I was outraged because this is silly but I have since learned that several devices (iphone, google's nexus one) already have an FM receiver but they just aren't enabled.  So that's cool, no additional cost.  But c'mon, do we really need the government propping up the dying radio stations?  (speaking as someone who listens to Pandora and NPR)

Peter hook is the legendary bassist for Joy Division and New Order.  On the 30th anniversary of Ian Curtis' death, he performed Joy Division's album, Unknown Pleasures, in full.  This December he will bring the tour to the US on a quick nine date US jaunt that starts in Washington DC on December 1st and wraps up in Los Angeles on December 11th. 

Personally I'm a little torn about this.  On one hand, I have never seen Joy Division live and this will probably be the closest chance I get (and no, the cover band, Joy Revision, doesn't count).  On the other hand, I'm not sure if this is memorializing the legendary singer or is it just continuing to cash in. 

They were on the Daily Show last night and performed "Month of May" and the shot of lead singer Win Butler next to Jon Stewart was a little odd considering how tall Win is compared to Jon.  Another odd fact is that Arcade Fire have the #1 album in America with their release of Suburbs last week.  This isn't the "indie" or "college" charts, this is the Billboard 200.  You can see the results on quite possibly one of the ugliest sites on the internet.  I don't know how I feel about Arcade Fire being on the same chart as Eminem, Avenged Sevenfold, Justin Bieber, or the "Now That's What I Call Music" compilations.

The Ex-Happy Mondays star has been convicted of assault.  He apparently attacked his ex-girlfriend, Monica Ward,  because he accused her of stealing money from him.  He "grabbed her neck with both hands and throttled her" according to the UK Press Association.  He will be sentenced on August 25th.

For those of you that don't know, Bez is the legendary dancer for the Happy Mondays.  And he's had problems getting a visa to tour with the Monday's when they play the US because of past drug charges.

David Cross is a pretty funny commedian.  He's been in a ton of stuff including Mr. Show with Bob and David and Arrested Development.  He co-wrote a new show called "The Increasingly Poor Descisions of Todd Margaret" and Johnny Marr has wrote the theme song.  Another fun fact about Johnny Marr is that he wrote some of the music for the film, Inception, but this is his first television work.

The show will air in October on Channel 4 in the UK and on IFC in the US.  There's a bootleg of the pilot available on youtube, but it doesn't contain the theme song.  You should still watch it as it's pretty funny.

We've only barely mentioned Freebass in the past, it was during Excellent Online's crappy "digg-wannabe-days" (sorry everyone, I now love reddit).  Anyway, Freebass is a supergroup that features Peter Hook (New Order), Mani (Stone Roses, Primal Scream), and Andy Rourke (Smiths).  It was a triple-bass supergroup.  Yes, they now have a drummer and a singer too.  Earlier this year they released their first EP, Two Worlds Collide, and their album, It's A Beautiful Life, in digital form only.  Next week they're going to release the CD version of their EP and with that release, Andy Rourke is departing from the band.  According tho their official site, "Andy Rourke was initially involved in the conception of the group and contributed to the EP and a few tracks on the LP , He is now living in NYC and will not be joining the band for live dates."

Spin is celebrating their 25th anniversary with five nights of live music.  I've apparently been under a rock so I only found out about it this morning.  Tonight they will be streaming Spiritualized perform "Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space" album in it's entirety.  The stream starts at 8:30 EST (5:30 PST).  Unfortunately you have to sell your Facebook soul because it will force to log in via Facebook, then you have to "like" it before it'll let you watch the stream.  I'm starting to miss the days where companies would ask for your email address and you can provide a fake one.

UPDATE:  It looks like Spin is rebroadcasting the videos from last week so the Smashing Pumpkins are on tonight (August 2nd).  The Flaming Lips will be on tomorrow, then the National on Thursday and Spiritualized will wrap up the week on Friday, August 6th.

The Chemical Brothers have released a new video for their track, "Another World", which is off their latest album, Further.  I'm not embedding it in this site because last time Parlophone removed the rights and it looked silly.  So just go to youtube and check out the video for yourself.  As usual, the Chemical Brothers deliver in their visual style and have created a great video.  One of the youtube comments even made sense!  xDarkJJx writes, "reminds me of radioheads' clip: house of cards."  Right on xDarkJJx, Right on.  

Badly Drawn Boy is gearing up for a new release, It's What I'm Thinking, Pt 1 which is due on October 4th in England.  After his Born in the U.K. album received some bad press, he had a hard time getting back in the studio.  He was able to write the score for a TV drama called "The Fattest Man in Britain" and then he turned his attention to writing his own album.

A demo of the track, "In Safe Hands" can be heard over at 24bit and you can check out some other stuff on Badly Drawn Boy's youtube channel.