Who Taught You to Live Like That

We are in the midst of some serious face-melting heat, mang. It's the kind of weather that makes you verrrrrry sleeeeeepy. Yep.

So I was excited to stumble upon the fact that one of my favorite bands, the mighty Sloan, has released a new single. They're streaming Who Taught You to Live Like That on their Myspace yert; you can also find an MP3 of it at the fine Culture Bully blog. The band plans to release its new album, Never Hear the End of It, on September 19; hopefully, it'll be released in the U.S. at the same it is in Canada. Often their records come out elsewhere before they do here. The single itself is a classic Jay Ferguson composition, but a little more anthemic than we're used to hearing from him. Good stuff.

But I don't want any SPAM:

• I was disappointed to read today that Tour de France champ Floyd Landis flunked a drug test taken after stage 17 of the race, but it didn't really come as a shock. Let's face it, cycling is as dirty a sport there is when it comes to blood doping. Of course, he may still be exonerated if the "B" sample contradicts the original results; if found guilty, he'll be stripped of his Tour title. Here's hoping it was a false positive and he was clean, after all.
• I'm a big fan of Chris Cornell and his work in Soundgarden, not so much his recent stuff with Audioslave. The first album was okay and I only heard the second one once and wasn't bowled over. But I have to admit I'm curious to hear what he does with the theme song to the next James Bond movie. Still, I'll take Badmotorfinger any day of the week over anything he's done in the last 10 years.
• Metallica, another band whose early work was frickin' amazing, has finally relented and agreed to make its catalog available on iTunes. They added two live tracks to each of the first four albums. Funny, I just picked up a used copy of Kill 'Em All for $8 a few weeks ago at the Strawberries (yeah, they're still in business) here in town. Other big-name bands who still haven't allowed their music to be sold on iTunes include Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, and Radiohead (you can only buy their music digitally to benefit the War Child charity).
• I'd be happier if it was actually picked up by another network to continue airing new episodes, but the hi-larious Arrested Development will live on in syndication on MSN.com and cable channels HDNet and G4, all of which will air the show through 2009. Cool news, but I'll pick up the shows on DVD.
• It makes you feel good about the people making big decisions for us when you hear Senator Ted Stevens talk about how the Internet is made up of a bunch of tubes. Yeah, I know this is a few weeks old, but I'd be remiss if I didn't make fun of this geezer. I mean, you've gotta watch Jon Stewart skewering the old coot: