. . . he gets weirder. New album promo for his "lost" third album Close Calls with Brick Walls contains no music -- probably not a bad idea; it was released a few years ago in Japan, and we recall it being pretty just OK. But the video does include Andrew's interpretive-dance recitation of the Darth-Vader-uses-the-dark-side-to-throw-shit-at-Luke scene from The Empire Strikes Back, this time starring a toy santa, a blow-up lobster, and a big white dog.

Say what you will about Vampire Weekend - and really, so many people have given their opinion that there really isn't anything new to add at this point - but, despite their generally preppy aesthetic, they're pretty legit punk and hardcore fans. So it shouldn't have been much of a surprise when they covered Rancid's 1995 classic "Ruby Soho" over the weekend at a Radio 1 session.

Even if you knew in advance about the deal that ARCADE FIRE cut with the NFL Network, it was still really odd -- during a Super Bowl geared towards showcasing fogey rock -- to hear "Wake Up" nearly once a commercial break. Arcade Fire frontman (and former Porter Square shoe salesman) WIN BUTLER allowed the cable-network arm of Jock USA's largest corporate entity to use the band's signature hit to hype such upcoming indie-friendly programming as .

Put another feather in the cap of the ART-affiliated OBERON THEATER (up for a Boston Best 2010 award if you're in the voting mood), which last night played host to JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE, in town to receive the Hasty Pudding's annual goofball Man of the Year award. Click above to watch Boston Foodie's paparazzi clip, or jump over to YouTube to watch Channel 5's embedding-disabled (booo!) recap.

We're not sure exactly what provoked it (perhaps someone borrowed Pete Wentz's eyeliner without asking?), but it seems that the members of Fall Out Boy are on the outs. The four punk-poppers are currently embroiled in a furious Twitter feud -- an online battle the likes of which we haven't seen since Courtney Love challenged her own daughter to the Facebook equivalent of a schoolyard tussle this past December.

VIKESH KAPOOR has been popping up in these pages over the past couple of years as one of the busier bodies in an auspicious young folk revival. No, wait, scratch that — “Am I a folk singer then?”, Kapoor wondered in a note to us about the title track of his new Newspress Scare seven-inch (Good People). He’d rather call it “a contemporary story song set against an Old World backdrop.

On sale Friday, February 5

HIM | March 28 at the House of Blues, Boston | $26-$35 | On sale Friday at 10 am

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony | April 5 at the Middle East downstairs, Cambridge | $25 | On sale Friday at 10 am

Martin Sexton | April 17 at the House of Blues, Boston | $25-$35 | On sale Friday at 10 am

Gogol Bordello + DeVotchka + Jesse Malin + St.

Hey, remember that new Amanda Palmer record we were telling you about? The one where her and her friend pretend to be a pair of conjoined twins called EVELYN EVELYN? This just in: it's apparently turned into the guest-star friendliest album since that Melvins record where Leif Garrett covered Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Most of you were probably too busy personally livetweeting last night's Grammy Awards to actually watch the performances or pay attention to what pop stars said about the show via Twitter, so we've compiled a highlight reel for both:

Anything you can do, Beyonce can do better -- she covered Alanis Morissette's "You Oughta Know" last night.

No sooner had PHOENIX wandered off the red carpet, they were handed a Grammy during the pre-televised portion of the ceremony. Click above to see the red carpet video from MySpace music.

Also: Megadeth lost to Judas Priest. Bummer. If you're looking for an extra-awesome Grammys Twitter fix, check out our newly-released celebrity music feed, where you will get instant updates like these quips:

For every Taylor Swift, Avril Lavigne, and Britney Spears -- that is, for every 15 year old who submitted to the studio system, allowed herself to be made-up and songwritten into superstardom -- there's 10,000 who did all of that and still didn't make it. Before she was old enough to drive, Waltham's NOELLE LEBLANC was hanging out in basements with a local producer and singing other people's songs.

Quilt

This week in the fishwrap, you can read Brodeur's take on five local new-ish bands to keep an eye on. And that's all well and good, but maybe some of you are reluctant to trek all the way to a show without knowing a little more about what you're going to hear when you're there. So, for you auditory learners out there, here are all five bands captured in digital form:

One of our favorite AMANDA PALMER yarns is EVELYN EVELYN, a duo with her singer-songwriter pal JASON WEBLEY, in which they pretend to be a pair of conjoined twins. Besides being adorable in a Geek Love kind of way, they also do some impressive collaborative accordion -- see the video above, a live performance of their signature tune "Elephant Elephant."