Whatever's supposed to be happening over at Radiohead TV right this second, it's happening. It's just not happening for us with any sort of consistency. After multiple attempts and a lot of staring at the QuickTime logo, we got in for a few seconds, only to see some dude in a crazy mask on the wheels of steel, with a single word printed on the screen ("entanglement"...we think). The video's changed since then, with a reel-to-reel playing what sounds to be some (as-yet-unidentified) Radiohead jams, a bit of Sigur Rós, and some punk songs (UPDATE: it appears to be all Radiohead, with both the video and audio on a brief loop) while somebody walks around in the background. Jonny, if you're reading this, call the Geek Squad.

Update! From Dead Air Space:

"we are experiencing difficulties
apologies for any inconvenience

insert swearword of choice here"

And then what happened? Some dude named Stanley said:

"helo
there will be something on the box tonight
its another test
but right now we

are entangled in cables
however
weather permitting
our technical experts will

resolve the entanglement
itll be broadcast as a quicktime h.264 stream
if youve got a

mac you'll already probably have quicktime player
if youve got a pc and it doesnt work,

you might need to download the installer (click here to download and install)

then click on to
www2.radiohead.tv


if you would like to view the webcast in the luxury of your own media player (such as VLC, quicktime or realplayer), then copy and paste this address:

rtsp://89.167.182.32:80/entanglement2.sdp"

So...later tonight then.

We're killing time today waiting for Radiohead to do something-- anything-- by enjoying "Surving the Times", one of the two new tracks on his recently released Greatest Hits. (The other, the Cee-Lo collaboration "Less Than an Hour", bowed in the latest Rush Hour film.) The wistful "Surviving" is part-reminiscence, part-creation myth, a look at the twists, turns, and people in Nasir Jones' life, from MC Serch to Russell Simmons. The video follows along the same lines, a scrapbook look at the man's life and career.

 [from Greatest Hits; out on Columbia]

The Arctic Monkeys' latest video made its debut earlier today on the NME and it took, like 12 hours for it to show on YouTube. (12 hours, but I want it now!) So this is what a post-OiNK world is going to look like.

The vid is for Favourite Worst Nightmare's third single, the "Fake Tales of San Francisco"-esque "Teddy Picker", out in the UK early next month (with a Richard Hawley duet on the B-side, woot!). OK, the song is a bit of a step down from "Brianstorm" and "Flourescent Adolscent"-- no shame there-- but what's this? A bit of anti-canon and anti-crit talk from the Monkeys: "When did your lists replace the twist..." Hey, I resent tha-- no, actually they're right.

Daedelus is a Los Angeles-based producer, but the video for his new "Fair Weather Friends" may be more familiar to those of us dwelling in lessy sunny climes. Directed by Jordan Kim, who does motion graphics for children's TV show "Yo Gabba Gabba!", the animated clip portrays a city that has a sign indicating it has gone "101 Days Without Color."

"You know, when the world gets warm, we get the same things on our minds as you boys do," a girlish voice says, as a bunch of smiling animated characters dance and cheer. Beneath warm, minor-key synths, the percussion (and the animated context) help bring to mind the beat from Peter Bjorn & John's "Young Folks". As in other videos recently, the world gradually brightens, changing the sign to "000 Days Without Color". That voice we heard? Apparently it was the voice of some kind of princess. The video is cute rather than sensual, and she's actually kinda funny-looking, but otherwise, boys, she's thinking what you're thinking. Ah, spring.

[from the Fair Weather Friends EP; out now on Ninja Tune]

Pole-- aka the bass-savvy dubsmith Stefan Betke, proprietor of the ~scape label-- isn't known for crafting dancefloor bangers. Even his comparatively sprightly last album, Steingarten, had "comedown" tattooed all over its hunched shoulders. Enter Thomas Melchior, who throws his trademark housey skip-- ragged hi-hats, jaunty swing-- under Pole's ethereal drift. It's still well mellow: This is fare for Sunday mornings in Berlin, preferably when the snow is piling up on the river outside the Watergate club's floor-to-ceiling windows and dancing is the only alternative to shuffling out into the cold-fronting day, hands in pockets and ears sizzling. 

After a long bout with lung cancer, Hank Thompson died Tuesday in Keller, Texas. He was one of the most popular of the second generation of Western swing bandleaders, following in the footsteps of Tex Ritter and Bob Wills and rivaling contemporaries Hank Williams and Tennessee Ernie Ford as country music 's biggest celebrity. Born in Waco, Texas, in 1925, Thompson, like most country musicians of the era, worked first in radio, where he put together his legendary band the Brazos Valley Boys. The band's sound relied heavily on electric guitar and pedal steel, but the Brazos Valley Boys downplayed the hotshot soloing that was prevalent in country swing in order to emphasize Thompson's clear, confident tenor.

After a string of minor regional hits (including his first, "Whoa Sailor", in 1946), Thompson signed to Capitol Records, where he stayed for nearly twenty years. His career exploded with the release of "The Wild Side of Life", a cheating-wife lament from 1952 that inspired Kitty Wells' "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" later that year. Despite the diminishing popularity of Western swing and big-band country, Thompson had a continuous stream of lesser hits through the 1960s and 70s, and he maintained a steady, if limited, touring schedule until shortly before his death.

Some of the best footage of Thompson in his prime comes from his appearance on "Star Route", a 60s variety show based in Toronto. Among other hits, he performed "Just to Ease the Pain" and "Green Light", but be sure to check out the clip "Hank's House" for a peek into the home life of country music's elite. We end with a clip showing photo stills with recordings of "The Wild Side of Life" and "Six Pack to Go".

Hank Thompson: "The Wildwood Flower" / "Just to Ease the Pain"

Hank Thompson: "Green Light"

Hank Thompson: "Hank's House"

Hank Thompson: "Wild Side of Life" / "Six Pack to Go"

Matador has posted the first new material from Cat Power's forthcoming covers record Jukebox, along with the final tracklisting. And the initial offering is...not a cover! It's the original "Song to Bobby", said to be about Dylan, and it sounds like Chan still has ghosts of the phrasing she tried out when covering "Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Mempis Blues Again" happening here. [NOTE: Matador Records has since removed this mp3 from its website, so we have respected the label's wishes and done the same.]

MP3:> Cat Power: "Song to Bobby"
[from Jukebox; due 01/22/07 on Matador]

Greg Dulli gets a bad rap for supposedly exaggerating the emotional and sexual anguish of 1960s soul and r&b like the Supremes ("My World Is Empty Without You") and Freda Payne ("Band of Gold"), but over the past couple of years with the Twilight Singers, he has covered a range of current songs by TV on the Radio ("Wolf Like Me") and Gnarls Barkley ("Crazy") that show how deep those dark themes run through popular music (in fact, the Afghan Whigs' catalog is scattered with contemporary covers like TLC's "Creep" and Hole's "Miss World"). Dulli isn't showing how dark these new songs are-- everyone already knows that "Wolf Like Me" is tortured and "Crazy" conflicted-- nor is he testifying to his own soiled soul. Instead, in connecting to the present the same way he connected to the past, Dulli is providing a continuous context for his own music, perhaps even pointing out how similar he is to other artists.

In this regard, José González's spare "Down the Line", from In Our Nature, now streaming at the Twilight Singers' MySpace page, proves to be a perfect cover for Dulli. Performing a show under his own name at the Triple Door in Seattle, Dulli and his band (including Petra Haden and Jeff Klein) fill out González's tense strums with piano and violin, building gradually throughout the song as a promise for a big Singers-style climax at the end, a culmination of all that sexual tension. "I see trouble down the line," Dulli sings, but the trouble never comes. Nor does resolution. The song just keeps spiraling at its maddening midtempo, quietly unraveling as Dulli tenderly yet menacingly repeats the line "Don't let the darkness eat you up."

Stream:> The Twilight Singers: "Down the Line"
[original track from José González's In Our Nature; out now on Mute]

You couldn't pick a better and more apt cover for Levon Helm's first studio album in 25 years. "The Mountain", originally penned and recorded by Steve Earle for his 1999 bluegrass album with the Del McCoury Band, recounts a life spent living on and working in a mountain, portraying mining as a noble undertaking that puts men in direct communion with the earth. Helm could be singing it as Ted Webb, the role he played in Coal Miner's Daughter, or just as himself: a veteran of the Hawks and the Band, a session musician and actor, a survivor of illness, bankruptcy, tragedy. The track begins with a swarm of mandolin strums and a piercing fiddle, as Helm enters singing confidently. Over the past ten years he has been gradually recovering from throat cancer, and his voice sounds weathered instead of weakened. With Buddy and Julie Miller singing behind him, Helm delivers a more forceful reading than the original, as if his continued presence on the Mountain is an act of hard survival as well as of defiance.

Canadian indie-poppers Stars performed four songs on Minnesota Public Radio show "The Current", all drawn from their latest album In Our Bedroom After the War.

Stream:> Stars: Live on "The Current"
[In Our Bedroom After the War is out now on Arts & Crafts]