by SHANE SINNOTT

After the way over-hyped episode earlier this year that involved Black Lips getting “kicked out” of India during a brief tour, the band sought refuge in Berlin with King Khan & BBQ. Now, about seven months later, the results of the collaboration between the two are being released with the self-titled Almighty Defenders album. The album is a bunch of fun garage rock, as you’d expect, but what I wanted to talk about is its release format—only LP and Digital. The whole death-of-the-CD thing has apparently reached the point that fairly mainstream bands—the Lips aren’t Flying Saucer Attack here—seem to think the CD itself is uncool (or unprofitable, I suppose). That’s the only argument I can see for going LP and digital: making a statement. Anyway, you can listen to the entire album for free at spinner.ca (tinyurl.com/kts2d3), the Canadian version of AOL’s music “destination” that launched this past summer. It’s worth checking out the site’s Listening Party section, which has 20 or so new releases streaming at any time.

The weirdest press release I’ve got arrived this week, with the subject line “The Hippest Christian Music Video That You’ve Never Heard Of.” Here’s the first chunk of it, verbatim: “New Christian rock recording artist Ron Lewerke has just released his new single ‘Free Man’—and it’s animated entirely in the medium of Flash. (youtube.com/watch?v=0hIWky-tw10). The song is an infectious, upbeat Christian pop song with a killer hook and just a touch of gospel, Queen-style... one of those choruses you can’t get out of your head.” And I can vouch for at least two of the things in that previous sentence being true.

Finally, Sony has singed a deal with Amie Street (amiestreet.com), the online music store mentioned here a few weeks ago that uses a “dynamic pricing model.” Songs start out free or at 1 cent, and go up in price as more people download. Sony, however, is opting out of that, selling its songs for regular prices on the site—proving, again, that the majors don’t understand anything.