by SHANE SINNOTT

The Pixies may be a bunch of old folks but they’ve been going all media 2.0 on us lately. The band is currently touring Europe, playing the classic Doolittle album in its entirely. And they’re selling recordings from many of the gigs almost as soon as they are over. As well as the standard double CD and digital download, you can buy USB wristbands that contain the show plus five exclusive videos. Check it out at tinyurl.com/yasvoyh. To get your appetite whetted, they’re offering a free live Doolittle EP for download, and you can get one by going to their site and entering your e-mail address for a link, at pixiesmusic.com.

A search for some other live stuff led me to the awfully named Toilet Guppies blog (toiletguppies.blogspot.com) which, in the bloggers’ words, “tries to limit itself to posting music that’s out-of-print, unreleased or so old it’s up for grabs.” This is way more interesting than the typical blog fare, the same three or four thinly disguised viral marketing attempts that make the blogosphere rounds every few days. Check out the MP3 Killed the Vinyl DJ series, in which vinyl-only releases are posted online, for you losers without record players. The one at tinyurl.com/ybb46d6 puts together two Michael Gira poems and a Devendra Banhart song from an old split LP with Jana Hunter. Best, though, is that you can just scroll down an organized artist list on the right and find rare and unreleased material by Brian Jonestown Massacre, Joy Division, Roky Erickson, Spiritualized, the Rolling Stones and tons of others.

If you’re looking for songs of the more all-over-the-place variety, as mentioned above, there’s a weird remix of the Beastie Boys’ “Intergalactic” by the Russian DJ Polymorphic at tinyurl.com/yhrvj2j. It sounds dark and Eastern European—i.e. sort of the opposite of the Beastie Boys. And Solange Knowles, Beyoncé’s little sister, has released a sweet cover of the Dirty Projectors’ “Stillness Is the Move” (tinyurl.com/ygxks3g). It’s not the kind of song you would think needs the R&B treatment, but it’s surprisingly infectious—shows how much I know.