A so-called “high-frequency concert” composed by über-artistic husband-wife team Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed occurred over the weekend in Sydney, Australia for a thousand-strong crowd of dogs and their owners. While Reed himself didn’t perform at the “Music for Dogs” event, Anderson led a 4-piece band through twenty minutes of abstract (to our human ears, anyway) auditory canine treats.

If you’re curious to “hear” these pet sounds, check out two clips from the concert below. Meanwhile, Homeland, Anderson’s excellent new album for the Homo sapien set, is now streaming in full at NPR.

Husband-wife experimental music duo Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson saw your playing noise music with children, Thurston Moore, and have raised you Music for Dogs, a “high-frequency concert” for the Reed/Anderson-curated Vivid Live festival next month at Australia’s famed Sydney Opera House. The Sydney Morning Herald reports (via Flavorwire) that while owners and their four-legged friends will both be in attendance, the canine half of the group will be the most entertained: “You can just about hear [the music] sometimes,” said Anderson. “And you look at it on the meters and you see what it’s doing. And your dog’s ears will be twitching.”

The piece was inspired by their rat terrier, Lollabelle. So what kind of tunes does Lolla want? “She likes things with a lot of smoothness but with beats in them. Things with voices and lots of complicated high-end stuff. Chk-chk-chk-chk-chk … that kind of stuff.”

We knew that former Velvet Underground frontman and art-rock icon Lou Reed is amid a pretty serious foray into photography, but that he’s dabbling in film as well is news to me. As it turns out, the trailer to his forthcoming directorial debut, Red Shirley, has been hiding in plain view on YouTube since early this year, but the Playlist graciously alerted us to the project today.

Reed and collaborator Ralph Gibson pieced the documentary together from footage shot on the eve of the 100th birthday of Reed’s cousin, Shirley Novick, in which she provides a narrative about her long life, including her survival of two world wars and account of her work as a dressmaker for almost five decades.

It looks like a wonderful film, based on the trailer alone, but that’s not all: We dug around a bit and unearthed an interview with the Independent from last year in which Reed revealed that the film will feature his own new original music. “I made the soundtrack for it with my band, Metal Machine Trio,” he said.

Red Shirley will premiere in Nyon, Switzerland next month, as part of the Visions du Reel film festival. Watch the trailer below:

A few links of note before regularly [un]scheduled programming beings…

• As we mentioned when the trailer hit the web, Spike Jonze’s new 30-minute robot love story, I’m Here, features music by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Nick Zinner, Flea, and a gorgeous song by the Moonrats’ Aska Matsumiya called “There Are Many of Us.” Now Jonze and company are offering limited free screenings of the full film online (via /Film) every couple hours. 
• Jack White did a fashion photo shoot and interview with AnOther magazine, and they’ve posted a nice preview online in which he connects Larry David’s character on Curb Your Enthusiasm to the blues and more.
• Flavorwire counted down 35 great musical moments in film, and graciously limited their list to only 3 Wes Anderson picks. Off the top of my head, I would add Lou Reed’s “Street Hassle” in Squid and the Whale and Smog’s “Vessel in Vain” from the Dead Man’s Shoes opening sequence.
• Spoon broke down their set list strategy to 10 easy steps.

While visiting Canada for last night’s Neil Young tribute concert in Vancouver, Lou Reed stopped by Q Radio earlier in the week to promote his new photograph book, Romanticism. Interviewer Jian Ghomeshi (who handled that confrontational Billy Bob Thornton Q&A last year) does a solid job at not getting rattled by Reed’s occasionally awkward silences, waiting patiently instead for the rock legend to add further musings on various subjects. You might think a talk with the former Velvet Underground frontman about photography, instead of music, would be frustrating, but the two art forms are actually quite related for Reed, which he explains at Ghomeshi’s request.

Though I highly recommend you download the podcast of the show here, as Reed’s voice and silences are intrinsic to his expression, here are a few teaser quotes if you can’t listen just yet…

Much to the chagrin of their manager, the Gorillaz’s first single, “Stylo,” from upcoming album Plastic Beach, leaked on the Internet last month, detonating a flurry of blog posts, articles, and good ol’ hype for the animated band. With a month left to go until the album’s March 9 release date, Damon Albarn, Jamie Hewlett, bassist Murdoc and company have dropped a few more album teasers for immediate digital consumption.

In a so-called “Pirate Radio” stream on their official site and elsewhere, bassist Murdoc played a brief clip of a song from the new record. Stereogum speculates that the vocal is Sweden’s Little Dragon, and they’ve pulled the clip for us to decide for ourselves. Check it out here.

As previously reported, Lou Reed has recorded a cameo performance on the track “Some Kind of Nature.” Still can’t wait to hear that song (or the whole album for that matter), but we now have Jamie Hewlett’s Gorillaz-ized illustration of the former Velvet Underground rock god (see above). Oddly, the image was originally posted on Reed’s official site, but was abruptly removed thereafter. Fan site Gorillaz-Unofficial grabbed it, though, so have a look here or above.

And finally (for now), those hoping for a closer look at the island world on the Plastic Beach album cover art (and likely upcoming music videos) should check out the band’s new “orchestral trailer” with an animated tour of the newest Gorillaz universe. Watch it here or below:

To celebrate the remastered release of his classic 1975 album Metal Machine Music on 5.1 Surround Sound, double vinyl, Blu Ray, and DVD Audio, Lou Reed will be joined by saxophonist/composer Ulrich Krieger and Sarth Calhoun for a string of performances of improvised music and soundscapes, specifically, “A Night of Deep Noise.”

According to a press release, the 9 European tour dates “will feature no songs and no vocals. The trio will utilise guitars, saxophones, continuum, plus an array of electronic treatments that will venture into deep acoustic space.”

The group (dubbed the Metal Machine Trio or MM3) has actually performed before in LA in 2008, but now Reed has regrouped with Krieger, whom he met at the premiere of the Zeitkratzer Orchestra’s Krieger-transribed/arranged version of the original Metal Machine Music.

For more info, specific dates, and pictures of MM3 jamming, go here.

‘Tis the season for Neil Young tribute shows: Not only do we have the MusiCares “Person of the Year: Neil Young” award show, which will feature performances by Wilco, Red Hot Chili Peppers (sans John Frusciante), CSN, and Jackson Browne, coming up on Grammy week, but now Vancouver’s Winter Olympic Games have organized their own rival tribute concert for the Ontario-born living legend.

We’ve known for awhile now that Iron and Wine’s Sam Beam, Sun Kil Moon, Vashti Bunyan, Joan as Policewoman, Ron Sexsmith, BSS’ Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning, Julie Doiron, and a slew of other notable artists were set to take the Queen Elizabeth Theatre stage next month, but a certain legendary Velvet Underground member has now been added to the roster as well.

Lou Reed, whose wife, Laurie Anderson, will also be in town showing her “series of short mystery plays” called Delusion, has been added to Hal Willner’s tribute show lineup, according to the official Vancouver Olympics site (via Exclaim).

Check out the full lineup and purchase tickets thataway.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame threw a 25th anniversary party for itself at NYC’s Madison Square Garden this fall, complete with performances by a slew of their famous friends/inductees (Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton, Stevie Wonder, et al.). Sounds like a good idea to me. A bad idea: Hey, let’s have Metallica perform with various guest singers, like Ozzy Osbourne, the Kinks’ Ray Davies, and Lou Reed.

A few shaky vids of balcony seat footage aside, I was blissfully unaware of what truly went down between Hetfield, Ulrich, Hammett, Trujillo, and their new legendary frontmen until the concert aired on television the other night. It’s now on the series of YouTubes, and I was just too curious to look away.

So we’re not really suggesting you watch James Hetfield holler “sweet Jaaaaneeyeah!” but feel free to rubberneck here or below if you’re curious and/or a masochist. Meanwhile, Elvis Costello and the Beastie Boys make for a better 25th anniversary mashup, if you ask me.