Brandon Flowers and Lady GaGa Join Pet Shop Boys at Brit Awards

The Pet Shop Boys sang a string of their hits to close this year's Brit Awards tonight in London. They were joined very briefly by Lady GaGa, and then Brandon Flowers. It was rumored that she'd join them on the track "Nothing Has Been Proved" but instead she took the Dusty Springfield part in "What Have I Done to Deserve This."

Both guest performances were a bit wobbly, imho. 

Flowers is a longtime fan of the duo, and talked about them in an interview in the documentary A Life in Pop, saying, "No matter how you look at America, if you just see a big hamburger, or whatever it is that you see, uh, [the Pet Shop Boys] took a bite out of it. America is still getting used to the word gay...so when you've got a band that's seen as this gay...thing...it's instantly going to be, there's going to be a wall that's gonna get put up. I think that the song for me that stood out, probably that meant something to me was "Being Boring", and I just assumed that it meant a lot to everybody. The first song that I danced to on a dancefloor in a disco was "New York City Boy". This was at a hip club in Las Vegas."

Watch it, AFTER THE JUMP...

Brandon Flowers Probed by Aliens with a Thing for Camp

A hetero Mormon who has spoken out for gay rights, Brandon Flowers of The Killers has always seemed nothing but gay to me, and he doesn't stray from that distinction in the new clip for their energetic new track "Spaceman," donning modified football shoulder pad drag with the same feathered epaulets he wore for "Human" along with tights and a utility belt/codpiece. "Spaceman" meditates on alien abduction.

Flowers' tendency to look back at the 80's and 90's for his inspirations appears to be in full force here. Robbie at Chart Rigger notes a campy familiarity to Andy Bell's 1985 clip for "Heavenly Action."

Watch it, AFTER THE JUMP...

News: Alfred E. Neuman, HPV, The Killers, Sarah Palin, Hate Crimes

Hate crimes down in 2007, except for those based around sexual orientation. Anti-gay bias crimes saw an increase of 6%.

Top McCain adviser calls Palin "a whack job."

This gallery contains nearly 100 parodies of the famous Shepard Fairey 'Obama Hope' poster. But the artist told BoingBoing that by far his favorite is the cover of the current issue of Mad magazine: "I loved Mad as a kid. I think Mad’s satire heightened my understanding of irony and hypocrisy. I’m very excited to be a part of Mad’s history."

New video: Christina Aguilera thinks she's Catwoman now.

Sarah Palin's favorite consignment store 'Out of the Closet' served with "cease and desist" order from The AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which runs a thrift store by the same name in California and Florida: "We are grateful to Governor Palin for bringing the infringement of AIDS Healthcare Foundation's trademark on our eighteen year-old 'Out of the Closet' name to our attention. In addition to raising funds for the care and treatment of thousands of people with AIDS in the US and around the globe, several AHF 'Out of the Closet' sites also serve as free HIV and STD testing centers..."

Cindy Crawford does Amy Winehouse for Halloween.

In June 2007 I reported that Gus van Sant and Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black had attached themselves to Tom Wolfe's book The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, for a feature film. FOX Searchlight has now picked up the project.

Joe Lieberman: McCain "will live to 85, at least."

The first track-by-track review of the new Killers album, Day & Age.

Lance Bass fights Prop 8 battle in guyliner.

90210 star Dustin Milligan says no to gay jokes: "My personal views on homosexuality and bisexuality and sexuality in general are so far from the dark place where these kinds of hateful terms come from and are not at all reflected accurately by such a statement. Especially now, when same-sex marriage is such a big issue in the US, I feel the days when jokingly calling someone a 'homo' or saying 'that's gay' are simply over." (via afterelton)

Nobel Laureate Dr Harald zur Hausen urges HPV vaccine for boys.

HELP: Im a gay married Mormon in the closet...

Gay MP in the UK attacked as he delivered balloons to his parents on their 50th anniversary: "Adam Price, the Plaid Cymru MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, and a friend were treated in hospital after the assault by four youths in Worcester on Saturday. Mr Price's spokeswoman, Heledd Fychan, said he received facial cuts and was unable to attend the party. 'A gang of youths set upon him randomly. They had no idea who he was. It was an unprovoked attack. He is a bit battered and bruised and has a black eye, but no broken bones.'"

Three Democratic operatives on what Obama needs to do to close the deal.

Jonas Brothers to make film debut in movie about farting dog.

Government orders Atlantis Dubai to free whale shark.

Matt Damon stumps for Obama.

London getting a new gay theatre: "...that's what's happening in Victoria, where the Shameless theatre company is taking over the 50-seat fringe theatre above The Stag pub in Victoria and rebranding it as the Above the Stag Theatre. Artistic director Peter Bull says the company plans on plays and musicals, focusing on new work loosely based around gay themes. The inaugural production will be American Briefs, a series of short works by US-based playwrights..."

UK Sunday Observer: 24% of British think gay sex should be criminalized?

Killers Get 'Human' with New Single

There's a warning on the YouTube site that this'll likely be pulled soon, so listen now. While I was secretly hoping for a Human League cover, I definitely give this a thumbs up.

Listen, AFTER THE JUMP...

Music News: Brandon Flowers...Mr. Right-Side?

Robbie Daw presents a weekly pop music update here on Towleroad! Robbie runs his own site called Chart Rigger.

Given that Andy's in Denver covering the Democratic National Convention, this seemed like the right week to take a bit of a political turn with the music column. But don't worry—I ain't about to start preaching.

Instead, I wanted to focus on part of an interview British rock journal NME ran last week with Killers' frontman Brandon Flowers. It's an article that likely won't get much press on this side of the pond. But it's one that's bound to raise an eyebrow or two.

First off, I like The Killers. Over the past year, I've mentioned them numerous times in my Towleroad music column, most recently talking about their upcoming third album—due out in November—which features Madonna collaborator Stuart Price on knob-twiddling duties.

It was four-and-a-half years ago when I first caught the Las Vegas-based band open for Morrissey here in L.A. at the Wiltern. It was just before Hot Fuss came out, and that being the year of the tenth anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death, on some small level I felt like I was hopping on an up-and-coming band's wave before it crested and crashed, the way I never got to with Nirvana.

Between L.A., Long Beach, Cleveland and Austin, I caught The Killers live half a dozen times in the years following that first show. When I started Chart Rigger in 2005, a large number of that first year's posts were  devoted to a bit of fanboy crushing on Brandon Flowers.

That said, my music blogger pal Paul in the U.K. mailed me the latest copy of NME, on which Flowers adorns the cover, last week. When it arrived, I tore open the package, laid back on my bed and began reading.

When I finished, I couldn't help wondering about what we truly expect of our idols and our icons. We read magazines, watch their movies, listen to their music, buy their books—all in an effort to get some inside glimpse into what they're really like, how they really feel and think.

But are we pleased when we hear Madonna comparing John McCain to Hitler? Did we really need to read Chris Ciccone reminiscing about toweling off his sister's naked body? Should the Dixie Chicks just  shut up and sing?

And does it really matter that eyeliner-happy, mischeviously ambigious devout Mormon Brandon Flowers might lean a little to "the middle"? Who knows—maybe more of us lean toward the middle than we care to admit.

Anyway, after the jump is an excerpt from James McMahon's interview with Flowers in the August 23, 2008 issue of NME.

News: Giant Bug Fossil, Lourdes, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Egypt

The reason for Jonathan Rhys-Meyers recent arrest for drunk and disorderly behavior in Dublin revealed: his mother's death.

Fossil of world's largest bug discovered: "Found in a German quarry, the claw is 46cm (18ins) long, suggesting the sea scorpion was 2.5m (8ft) long - almost two feet longer that it was previously thought the aquatic creatures grew to. Because land-based scorpions and spiders are believed to have descended from the sea scorpion, scientist believe the discovery means that they also may have been even bigger than had been believed."

Oprah contestants go apeshit over her favorite things - video.

Bush pushing through regulations that will further restrict the ability of HIV-positive people to enter the United States: "This is a big disappointment, given the rhetoric of the Bush administration that the US was making it easier - because the new regs simply add more heavy burdens for the HIV-positive traveler."

Gloves are off. Clinton mocks Obama over foreign policy experience: "Voters will have to judge if living in a foreign country at the age of 10 prepares one to face the big, complex international challenges the next president will face. I think we need a president with more experience than that, someone the rest of the world knows, looks up to and has confidence in." Obama shoots back: "Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld have spent time in the White House and traveled to many countries as well, but along with Hillary Clinton they led us into the worst foreign policy disaster in a generation and are now giving George Bush the benefit of the doubt on Iran. The real choice in this election is between conventional Washington thinking that prizes posture and positioning, or real change that puts judgment and honesty first."

Dennis Quaid and Cedars Sinai speak out: Quaid twins tragedy "preventable".

Canadian Polar Bear "harvest" risks population collapse: "In Canada, government hunting quotas encourage killing male polar bears over female ones. The theory is that, because females rear the bear cubs, losing one female polar bear will have a more serious impact on the population's ability to sustain its number. As a result, at least two thirds of polar bears killed in Canada each year are male, according to a separate study that will appear in a forthcoming issue of the journal Wildlife Biology. Research has shown that the policy has significantly reduced the ratio of males to females in polar bear populations across the Canadian Arctic."

Madonna's daughter Lourdes offered part in new Harry Potter film.

Facebook automatically opting in its users to privacy-violating pyramid scheme for its partners?

"Ex-gay" therapy hits Egypt.

Please don't let Santa shoot Brandon Flowers.

Crews mop up oil spill at San Francisco's gay beach.

Two groups of scientists announce they are able to create embryonic stem cells from ordinary skin cells: "The breakthrough marks the beginning of a new era for stem cell biology and could be the end for cloning as an alternative way to produce stem cells. One expert said cloning was now 'dead in the water'. Using the new technique, scientists were able to 'rewind' adult cells back to their embryonic state. The process paves the way for stocks of stem cells that can be turned into any of the 200 or so tissue types in the body."

Lance Bass kicks off the holidays at Bloomingdale's.

Outrageous: U.S. Military demanding that wounded vets give back their signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their terms due to injury.