LOLcats review music

In case you hadn't noticed, LOLcats have been everywhere.

The cute kitty pictures with misspelled captions dominate a popular blog called I Can Has Cheezburger, inspired an off-Broadway musical and are the subject of two bestselling books.

And now, as the LOLcats might say, "We r in ur CD collekshun, revyooing yoor muzik."

Kristyn Pomranz and Katherine Steinberg, the brains behind the stage production of MusicLOL, put together a series of LOLcat pictures critiquing some popular bands for the Times' Pop & Hiss blog.

Check out the nine LOLcat music reviews.

-- Mark Milian

Images: Kristyn Pomranz and Katherine Steinberg

A different kind of birdsong: Photo of birds on electrical wires inspires music

When Jarbas Agnelli of Brazil saw photographer Paulo Pinto's shot of birds sitting on electrical wires in a newspaper, he was struck by the image and the resemblance of the wires to a musical staff. He "cut out the photo and decided to make a song, using the exact location of the birds as notes," he writes, noting that no Photoshop was used on the image.

He credits the birds as the "composers" of the resulting song, "Birds on the Wires." And the story gets more interesting -- after finishing its orchestration, Agnelli sent the completed work to Pinto, whose contact information he found online using a plain old Google search. 

From there, Agnelli says, Pinto told an editor about the song, who passed along the information to a reporter, who wound up writing about the birds' music in the same newspaper in which their photo had originally appeared.  From there, it caught the attention of the fine folks at LaughingSquid.com, after which it was picked up as far as Washington, D.C., and now, Los Angeles. That's a long way from São Paulo!

-- Lindsay Barnett

Video: Jarbas Agnelli via Vimeo

Hairy, yellow spider is named for David Bowie

A German scientist specializing in the discovery of rare species of arachnid has named his latest find after David Bowie, he who introduced the world to "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars" in 1972. 

Unlike the album for which it was named, though, the Heteropoda davidbowie is no alien -- it was discovered in Malaysia by Peter Jäger, who has found about 200 new spider species over the past 10 years. And H. davidbowie, despite its name, bears no resemblance to either the Thin White Duke or his long-discarded Ziggy Stardust persona. It's large, yellow and hairy -- but its very strangeness, in a way, does seem to fit in with the theatricality of "Ziggy."

His penchant for naming his discoveries after celebrities isn't just for fun, either, Jäger says. Instead, he hopes that the names (another species was named after German musician Nina Hagen) will grab the attention of the public, whose help is needed to save these species, many of which are endangered. "It is working against time," Jäger told the Observer. "Along with the species, we are also quickly losing genetic resources that have evolved over more than 300 million years." 

Environmental authorities, the Telegraph notes, have often shied away from including spiders on their lists of endangered species, although the same dangers that affect other animals -- habitat loss, deforestation -- can affect them too. The International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of threatened species features only 27 species of spider, although more than 40,000 species are thought to exist.

No word as of yet from Bowie himself about what he thinks of the dubious honor of having a spider named for him.

-- Lindsay Barnett

Photo: Bowie as Ziggy Stardust in the film "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars."  Credit: Cowboy Pictures

Metallica: Not just for metalheads anymore, monkeys are fans too, a new study says

Animals prefer silence or sounds of their own species to human-made music, according to a new study published in the Royal Society Biology Letters and reported by the Discovery Channel. For some reason, that incites images of gorillas shaking their fists, screaming, "Will you kids turn down that goshdarn racket!"

What's even more interesting is that researchers found monkeys reacted calmly to Metallica's music, an apparently surprising discovery.

There appeared to be little explanation as to why the primates enjoyed the heavy-metal music. We're tempted to offer some guesses pertaining to the comparative intelligence of metalheads, but we don't want to insult any of our valued readers (or, for that matter, monkeys).

The research still doesn't explain why members of two different species can appreciate Metallica and why we cringe every time someone plays "One" on "Guitar Hero."

-- Mark Milian

RELATED:
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Photo: Metallica performing at the Forum on Dec. 17, 2008. Credit: Lawrence Ho / Los Angeles Times

John Mayer donates $25,000 to L.A. pet rescue groups after challenging TMZ

Thanks to celebrity-centric news source TMZ, two L.A.-based pet rescue groups are significantly richer today.

Pop star John Mayer challenged TMZ's founder, Harvey Levin, to come up with a mug shot from his 2001 arrest for driving with a suspended license.  Mayer made a bet with him: Find the mug shot, and Mayer would donate $25,000 to the charity of Levin's choice.  As it happens, Levin is an animal lover and specified pet rescue as his preferred cause.

In short order, TMZ had posted an appeal to readers, noting that, if the challenge turned out to be a hoax and no mug shot in fact existed, it would say that "John Mayer Hates Puppies."

Turns out Mayer -- as reproach-worthy as some of his other acts (like awful songwriting) might be -- doesn't hate puppies after all. (Perhaps the rumor that his ex Jennifer Aniston's beloved corgi mix, Norman, hated him still stings.)  TMZ produced the mug shot Thursday, noting that the star's suspended-license charge was dismissed within a month of the arrest, and urged him to "fork over the dough, pal."

Today, Mayer apparently lived up to his end of the bargain, posting images of two $12,500 checks made out to animal rescue groups Pet Orphans of Southern California and Ace of Hearts to his Twitter account.  (The latter group promptly posted a response, "THANK YOU JOHN MAYER AND HARVEY LEVIN!," on its website.)  So, though we'll never approve of abysmal lyrics like "One pair of candy lips and/Your bubblegum tongue," we have to give Mayer credit for doing something good -- just this once.

-- Lindsay Barnett

Photo credit: Peter Kramer / Getty Images

Pet Shop Boys (politely) declines PETA's request for a name change

Big surprise: the British band Pet Shop Boys says that, while the suggestion "raises an issue worth thinking about," it will be unable to comply with PETA Europe's request that it change its name to the Rescue Shelter Boys.

"Most dogs and cats sold in pet shops are sourced from profit-hungry breeders who may have bred them in cramped, filthy conditions...Many animals end up with abnormalities that result in both heartbreak and high veterinary bills for the unsuspecting people who buy them," the group's special projects manager Yvonne Taylor wrote to the band's two members, Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant. 

There are no hard feelings, apparently, at the refusal -- PETA Europe seems happy just to receive the shout-out the Boys posted on their website.  "As if you needed another reason to love the Pet Shop Boys besides 'West End Girls'," writes PETA blogger Shawna Flavell, referring to Lowe and Tennant's biggest hit.

But now PETA says it has bigger fish -- er, sea kittens -- to fry.  In a recent post, PETA blogger Amanda Schinke notes some other bands and musicians she thinks "could use an animal-friendly makeover."

Among them?  Meat Loaf (suggestion: Lentil Loaf), Deerhunter (suggestion: Deerhugger), and the Stray Cats (suggestion: the Spayed Cats).

RELATED:
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--Lindsay Barnett

Photo: Lee Jenkins / EMI Records UK