When an album is as good as Xiu Xiu’s Dear God, I Hate Myself you don’t need a lot of incentive to shell out the dough.  Jamie Stewart might disagree however. In order to spike pre-sales on their newest release, Stewart and Co. found the perfect bait: a t-shirt covered in human blood. NOT GROSS AT ALL, right? The first 21 people to dole out $40 for Dear God received handmade chocolate (how thoughtful) and a promotional t-shirt reading “Xiu Xiu For Life,” written in, wait for it…..blood whose origins we’re not entirely sure of right now.

Xiu Xiu may take the cake on the weirdness scale, but plenty of other bands have brought some oddball creativity to the promotions game. We break them down after the jump.

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Alright, put your clothes back on. It’s not like he’s nude all the time–catching him on Google street view was sort of a non-issue after we, um, saw his bits in the “Watching the Planets” video. But it’s still cool to see his house, and last January Coyne himself gave our FADER comrades a tour of the place. Labyrinthine, full of curves, abounding in egg shapes, attempting visions of the architectural future, the compound is really the type of place you hoped with all your little heart that he’d conceive of. Moreover, at the time of the video, Coyne promised us only more “freaky, drug-damaged artist” sections to the house, sections which we can only assume (and pray) have been since completed. Based on the photos we’ve seen (via Pitchfork, via Fitzsimmons Architects), the pad seems pretty cool. And it’s nice to know that Coyne is not only a lunatic, but that he’s a steadfastly good-hearted, give-back-to-the-community kind of guy. His architects have noted that, for Coyne, staying and living “in this long troubled neighborhood where he grew up” tops his priority list. And that’s good to know.

After reading that much discussed New York Magazine cover story on the Brooklyn scene from a few months ago, we’ll admit one of the more enjoyable daydreams we took away from it was imagining all these bands running around the borough together as musical superfriends. They could fight crime together and meet in underground hideaways around large tables flanked by swivel chairs. Unfortunately, we’re pretty sure this doesn’t really happen. But it’s sort of comforting to know our similarly outlandish theory for Oklahoma and walking around each new corner hoping to find a Flaming Lips member doing bizarre shit was absolutely true.

Google Streetview takes random pictures. Wayne Coyne is moderately insane. These two facts have finally come together to create one perfect result: a Streetview picture of Coyne sitting outside in a bathtub while his wife and friends set up a Halloween party (that apparently took place in 2007). While admittedly funny, we have to say considering the subject the context could have been a whole lot weirder. (Via: Spinner)

Not merely satisfied with the brain-melt that is their new record and that orgy of a music video of theirs, the Flaming Lips have dropped a beautiful, shiny holiday present at your feet: a Silver Trembling Fetus Christmas tree ornament. Read the full story

Remember that freaky orgy of a Flaming Lips video we told you about a few months ago? Well, the Oklahoma psych-punks wrapped production on it and shipped it off to the Internets for viewing. We can assure you that the the video, which features a bunch of naked Portlanders on mountain bikes, Wayne in his home, the bubble and a gigantic hair ball of a vagina birthing enough nude hippies to warrant its own Rainbow Gathering, is a pretty entertaining affair. We’re also going to go ahead and deem this Not Safe for Work. That is, of course, unless you work in a hospital on Mars, a vagina hair ball farm or Vincent Gallo’s production company. Not really sure what else we can say about this, as it really says it all itself, save that we haven’t seen this much pubic hair since we first got our hands on the Joy of Sex. Something tells me Alejandro Jodorowsky would dig this one.