by SHANE SINNOTT

Oh, man, there’s a great video that got posted online this week by Ghostface Killah, where he chews out his fans for having downloaded his new album Big Doe Rehab. You can watch it here: tinyurl.com/2wpsdf. He talks about the album release and the SoundScan (which tracks Canadian and U.S. album sales) figures vs. MySpace hits, and says, “’Cause I’ve got like 115,000 fans on the MySpace, and y’all motherfuckers are still downloading my shit. You know, I thought y’all motherfuckers loved me, man.” A little later: “I got 115,000 friends on MySpace, and in the first week I got 30,000 [SoundScan sales] and that’s not good man, you know what I mean? I’m using all these samples, trying to put all this shit together for y’all, and you’re still on all that bullshit, man.” Boldly, he even threatens to stop making music: “You’re gonna make me leave the game, if y’all keep doing shit like that.” He goes as far as to say he will have a personal meeting with anyone who shows him the retail CD when he comes to town, which seems pretty desperate to me (there’s also a moment when he says “pow-wow.”) I suppose Mr. Killah will be watching next week’s SoundScan figures closely. I’ll keep you posted.

On to the part where I show you interesting crap I found this week! Here’s Xiu Xiu, with Michael Gira of Swans, covering Queen’s “Under Pressure”: tinyurl.com/2cqrsk. It’s pretty awesome—I love the way Jamie Stewart (Xiu Xiu’s singer) starts wailing about two-thirds of the way though. If you want to hear him doing his super-quiet, depressing thing, incidentally, you should check out the Xiu Xiu cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car,” which bowled over this writer live at la Sala Rossa last year: tinyurl.com/2fr7ma. Your novelty track this week is gonna be MSTRKRFT (FYI, I just learned recently you’re supposed to say “Mastercraft”—I was just calling them “the Death From Above guy’s new band”) remixing the Kylie Minogue single “Wow,” which you can download at tinyurl.com/26on3p. Aw, that’s it—I’m out of space!