Contra Texas Democratic Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee, the House will not be voting on or even debating Resolution 600, which would claim Michael Jackson as an "American legend and musical icon," and put the pop singer forward as "someone who will be honored forever and forever and forever and forever" (there may have been more "forevers"; unclear). Nancy Pelosi, sensibly, declared at a press conference today that

"Michael Jackson was a great, great performer, and lots of sadness there for many reasons...What I have said to my colleagues over the years, and certainly as leader and as speaker, is that there's an opportunity on the floor of the House to express their sympathy or their praise any time that they wish. I don't think it's necessary for us to have a resolution."

We are pleased to bring you the official set times and stage info for this year's Siren Festival, the tiny little humble massive free all-ages show this paper throws yearly in the sunny, perhaps a little-bit-too-naked confines of Coney Island, featuring Built to Spill, Spank Rock, Monotonix, A Place to Bury Strangers, Japandroids, and many more. Things lift off at 1pm, and cool down shortly after 9pm, right around when our official MHOW afterparty--where you'll find Francis and the Lights, Gordon Voidwell, and Acrylics--kicks off a few miles to the north. In between, well, there's a lot. Details, pretty flyer, below.

To get you in the mood, here's friend-of-SOTC Peter S. Scholtes interviewing TMBG co-conspirator John Flansburgh twice: once for adults, and once for kids. The latter is brief but still hilarious: Finally, the proper venue to open an interview with "What is your favorite number, and why?"

Um, so those are "climate bill muscles," by way of articulating the position that "Congress must pass a stronger climate bill than the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES)," which they wussily passed back in June. Still confused? Tell us more, Daily Kos! "If the muscle suits didn't allude to the issue enough, each muscleman wore a t-shirt with "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" on them. The popular song by Daft Punk, later remade by Kanye West, correlated with the more specific asks of harder oversight on coal plants, better renewable portfolio standard and investments in international adaptation, faster emissions reduction targets and, more generally, stronger leadership and a stronger bill." All of which you can understand immediately, just by looking at them, of course.

Strongmen Storm the Capitol [Daily Kos]

Tonight we give props to the infant, hopelessly unsustainable civilization young Brooklynites have built for themselves. The music these kids concoct is so innocent, so unworldly: catch it now before the asbestos in their hastily-redecorated warehouse walls exterminates everyone. Nymph, Begushkin, and Dinowalrus cross the river for a New York Eye and Ear Festival showcase, while Justice of the Unicorns hold down the fort at Bruar Falls in Williamsburg.

Metalocalypse mastermind Brendon Small also wrote, recorded, and produced both of Dethklok's albums. So by Adult Swim's calculations, this guy is the second coming of Odin. He's at Santos' Party House.

Tim Hagans has the chops to make his trumpet speak, and the sense to stick to standards. He begins a week at Birdland.

The Latin Alternative Music Conference hosts its first panels at the Roosevelt Hotel, both of which are somehow named after European pop songs--You Can Go Your Own Way: Indie Artist Tour Success Stories, and Politik Kills: Latin Artists & Political Engagement in the Era of Obama.

Information remains scant on the super minimal page for the 2009 Brooklyn Electronic Music Festival, scheduled for August 8 at everybody's favorite BK venue the Old American Can Factory, a/k/a the Yard, a/k/a the old Issue Project Room space, a/k/a probably the only inhabitable lawn along all of the Gowanus. Last week, the fest announced two headliners--the Juan MacLean and RJD2--and the date and time, but otherwise kept pretty much mum about what they had in store. Pitchfork seems to have cracked the code a bit, adding joke-soul/domestic-disco duo Free Blood, 8-bit 8-year veteran New York two-piece Shy Child, Home Video, Adventure, and the Miami-based Awesome New Republic to the lineup. The whole thing's slated for the second Saturday in August, and is set to run to the uncomfortable hour of 4AM. Tickets are still available here, should you not much value your sleep that weekend. [Pitchfork]

Whimsical Brooklyn brother-sister act Fiery Furnaces released the distinctly sitcom-y "The End Is Near" in June, as a prelude to their eighth album, I'm Going Away, due out in a couple of Tuesdays. The song contains the couplet "Woe is me/Etc.: Lonely. See...," something we know for a fact (down to the punctuation!) because the lyrics are posted over at WNYC's Soundcheck blog, as an aid to a video contest the site is holding--YOU make a video for the song, etc. etc. Hilariously, this contest will be judged by Rik Cordero, probably the most wacky, flashy rap music video director this side of Hype Williams. He, the Fiery Furnaces, and YOU will converge on Soundcheck, the radio version, come September, should your film win. Anyway, above is the video WNYC's posted to get you started, in which Matthew Friedberger assays both a Bob Dylan impression and a bit of philosophy: "Our lives, they're not feature films anymore--big feature film spectaculars. They're just tiny, little, maybe sad TV shows." I dunno, Matthew. Have you seen a little thing called "Deeper than Rap"?

It's been a little while since we checked in with Fabolous, the Brooklyn rapper whose Twitter we interviewed back in the innocent days of May. Back then people still cared about swine flu ("NEWS FLASH : Kermit the frog just passed away this morninq from swine flu," he tweeted then, blaming the whole thing on Miss Piggy), and Loso's Way, Fab's forthcoming fifth record, was slated for release in June, not late July. Things change. But some erstwhile rap video conventions don't, and Fab went in here, for the video to "Welcome to My Workplace," a new song that looks to be attached to Loso's Way--naked ladies chopping up coke, white boys buying it and screaming "I can't feel my face," Joe Budden lamping for no reason in a stairwell, 1-2 Wire cameos, and a song that will, should it make the record, almost assuredly be the hardest thing on there, album-Loso being mostly a crossover r&b thing. Quotable: "Better than McCartney with the Beatles when I work base." Indeed. [h/t Broken Cool]

Despite the best efforts of hundreds of simultaneous live blogs, streams on an incredible array of different platforms and websites, and John Mayer's unforgivable jazz face, the internet survived yesterday's midday Michael Jackson memorial with barely a stutter. MSN reported that 50% more people watched the memorial on their site than they did for the Obama inauguration, a statistic tempered by the fact that at CNN, the number was down about 60% percent from the Obama high of 27 million video streams on inauguration day. Still, CNN's 81 million pageviews and 9.7 million live video streams made for the second biggest streaming event ever on the site. Twitter did the requisite slowing down in memoriam, while Facebook handled about 6,000 status updates per minute. None of this was enough to make the internet go up in flames. This marks the second time something slated to die in orgy of fire and traffic failed to combust from the power of the Jackson memorial, after Los Angeles survived the surreal experience of having Jackson's dead body driven across its spookily empty freeways for most of yesterday morning.

MSN gets record traffic during Jackson memorial [The Live Feed]
Internet Somehow Survives Michael Jackson Funeral [Gawker]

"People still ask me, 'Oh, when are you coming back on the screen? We miss you.' Blah, blah, blah. But I wouldn't feel very good if I had to do that again."

The beatific Argentinean singer/song-writer Juana Molina began playing music in 1996, after she abandoned a very successful television career as a comedic actress in Buenos Aires. Since then, Molina--who performs this evening at Central Park Summerstage--has released five albums. Her latest, Una Dia, is an airy album, rich with acoustic guitars and fluid, echoing chants. Molina is without a doubt a global figure--her music is frequently compared to fellow globetrotters Bjork, Beth Orton, and Lisa Germano--who, after growing up in Paris (her family fled Argentina after the 1976 military coup), returned to her native country and started not one but two major arts careers. But don't call her multilingual, guitar/synthesizer/laptop/keyboard compositions "world music"--she hates the tag. We caught up with Molina on the phone from Argentina in advance of her show in Central Park to talk about the joys of collaborating with other musicians, the pains of leaving TV behind, and just how exactly she likes to think of her own stuff.