Knocked Out, indeed
Paula Abdul behaves oddly in the clip from the web
Anthony Augustine


Paula Abdul drunk on the air?—www.devilducky.com/media/56536/ — Apparently Paula Abdul is a fan of Danny DeVito because she recently showed up on Seattle TV to promote the new season of American Idol and slurred her way through a really awkward interview with the local Fox affiliate. Representatives from the network have said an audio problem was the source of Paula’s weird behaviour, but anyone who has watched the clip will probably have his or her own opinion of what happened.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah—myspace.com/clapyourhandssayyeah — The new album from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is set to hit stores on Jan. 30, but the New York post-punk art rockers have decided to release Some Loud Thunder ahead of time through digital download sites. They’ve also decided to stream the entire album online. After its first disc was fuelled by the buzz of bloggers, the quirky five-piece abandoned traditional promotional methods on the second outing. Instead of worrying when the album would be leaked, they shipped out early singles to websites, streamed the record on the ubiquitous MySpace and made Some Loud Thunder available for legal download before the release. The band also struck a deal with some download sites to have anyone who bought the album digitally receive a physical copy of the CD, too.

Stephen Colbert on The O'Reilly Factor— tinyurl.com/22ecoq; tinyurl.com/24wyy8 — After spending time defending his recent accusations that Shawn Hornbeck was not effected by Stockholm syndrome and that there must be other reason why the young boy did not try to escape his captor, Fox News pundit Bill O’Reilly had Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert on his top-rated right-wing news program. Colbert returned the favour later in the evening by giving O’Reilly time on his late-night news parody show. While Jon Stewart’s appearance on Fox was genuinely funny, neither Colbert nor O’Reilly really gets going in these two clips.

Tribute to James Brown— www.stonesthrow.com/jukebox — Considering the impact James Brown has had on hip hop, R&B and soul, it isn’t surprising to see a bunch of tributes pop up after his death. One of the most sampled artists in history, the Godfather of Soul has left his mark on modern music. Mixed by Stones Throw’s Peanut Butter Wolf, J.Rocc and Egon, this collection of cuts is a fitting bookend to the career of the hardest-working man in showbiz. Free iTunes download and MP3 stream available.

Things My Boyfriend Says— www.thingsmyboyfriendsays.com — If you’re an audio voyeur and a big fan of Overheard in New York or Weirdos of Winnipeg, you’ll probably want to bookmark Things My Boyfriend Says. Just be glad your partner doesn’t have a blog about the stupid shit you say.

Anthony Augustine is a freelance music, technology and pop culture writer. He can be heard every Tuesday morning at 9:00am on Hot 103 discussing the web. Got a site you think he should see? E-mail him at anthony.alloneword@gmail.com.