Joe Berkowitz at the Awl wins the morning in music blogging for his very funny and self-deprecating essay on the 16 months he spent touting Death Cab for Cutie's "Narrow Stairs" to friends after pirating it online. Unfortunately, he didn't realize it was a cheekily mislabeled collection of songs from the quite similar German band Velveteen.

The tale is something like "Brokedown Palace" for music fans -- a small mistake in a morally murky subculture yields horrifying, humiliating consequences. But Berkowitz really breaks out the lash when he comes to realize that digital culture may have cheapened music to the point where it doesn't even matter if you have the actual songs at all.

"The Velveteen album served the same purpose and produced the same effect for me as the Death Cab for Cutie album it replaced for 16 months," he said. "In doing so, it proved that as long as our expectations are met, we’ll believe anything, even if we don’t buy it."

-August Brown

Photo: Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie. Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times

Mexican disco-punk, psychedelic blog-fodder and a rap evil genius are on your show docket for this week's installment of The Week That Will Be. Adhere to it at your discretion.

Kinky  The Mexican punk/techno/general-club-mayhem band is one of the best arguments for globe-trotting cosmopolitanism in pop music, as its fizzy dance-party raveups seem charged both with social righteousness and a righteous good time. Music Box @ Fonda, 6126 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Tonight. $18. (213) 480-3232.

If your idea of a Valentine's date leans more toward holding $10 beers aloft in an arena, thrashing about a sweaty mosh pit or grinding on strangers in a pulsing club, here are a few highlights of the Southland's safest bets for amour-inspiring concert offerings on the 14th.

Yo Majesty at the Echoplex: Impossibly bawdy, gloriously vulgar and exuberantly sex-positive electro rap from this Tampa-based duo known for inspiring crowd chaos and more-than-occasional nudity at its shows.

Sparks at Royce Hall, UCLA: With their usual degree of art-glam puckishness, the Mael brothers (Ron and Russell), a.k.a. Sparks, will work their way through two albums at the show: "Exotic Creatures of the Deep" and "Kimono My House."