[Video Link] A cat named Steven was playing guitar when an earthquake struck in Melbourne, Australia last week, causing it to stop for a moment.

(Via Arbroath)

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Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

MORE: cats • earthquakes • music

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http://twitter.com/Beryllium9 Beryllium9

Wrong headline. Should be “Cat uses guitar to cause earthquake”.
nvlady

Cat’s thinking: “Wow, I wield such power! Wish I were taller.”
- https://plus.google.com/104067355242126774300/posts?hl=en Dennis Smith
  
  I wish I was a baller….
voiceinthedistance

When you have a song in your heart, everything else is just an annoying distraction.
http://profiles.google.com/haysrockdoc Ron Schott

The quake was M5.2, not M6.3.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/usb000ajek.php
http://profiles.google.com/bermanmk Mark Berman

Given that the Richter scale confuses everyone anyway why not just measure earthquakes by how many cats they stop from making youtube videos?
- http://www.edmstudio.com futnuh
  
  Linear cats, or logarithmic cats?
  - Bob Mull
    
    Schrödinger’s cats
  - Mark Dow
    
    Youtube is a log of rythmic cats. So logrythmic.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Nell-Anvoid/100002383626402 Nell Anvoid

The music must go on!
Judas Peckerwood

That’s one cool cat!
Shibi_SF

I hope that he was playing “Moonshadow” or more likely, “Wild World”.
- waetherman
  
  Even more likely “But I Might Die Tonight”
- http://shadowfirebird.tumblr.com shadowfirebird
  
  Presumably not “I love my dog”…
retchdog

the truncated scream at the end is a bit unsettling…
Shai_Hulud

*spoiler*
video is a remix/edit (hoax?) as found by australian redditors http://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/vb0t4/cat_in_melbourne_plays_a_guitar_and_is/c52zpud
A couple of news agencies even used the video as news material, without bothering to check varicity. Well, it does tell an interesting story.
http://electronsoup.net/?p=16
- http://jello-bomb.tumblr.com/ Jello
  
  Thank you, I was hoping someone had beaten me to it!
http://www.markcrummett.com crummett

That is _exactly_ the kind of headline I expect to see on boingboing!
chortick

While we all appreciate a good amp, kitty needs to dial back the bass a little…
http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

I love the Internet.
Shai_Hulud

Looks like this cat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq6JtnAT6jU#t=0m20s
- Volt Ron
  
  Looks exactly like it, but without the earthquake type of sound effects and camera shake. Both are still amusing videos.
Thad Boyd

Of course. Why even HAVE a Cat Steven if you’re not going to teach him to play guitar?
- Culturedropout
  
  If there were several, would it be Cat Stevens? Cats Steven? Cats Stevens…?
http://www.kidconcept.com/ danno

“owner heroically continues filming cat video”
Shai_Hulud

What I find fascinating is how a subjectively “interesting/amusing” story albeit fiction tends to have more value than plain truth. The fact that four tv news networks used the video as material is hilarious.

It’s also really cool and slightly alarming that a piece of media can be edited so quickly, released into the wild, and then be incorporated into news as information.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1247842954 Tom Henthorn

I love how little of a fuck the cat gives about the earthquake
paulj

I’m not impressed with the laid-back picking. Even if their name is Steven, any self-respecting cat would be shredding!
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=730017129 Willem Reyners Tay

Haha.. yeah this is widely recognised as a fakez..hence the cat not going haywire!
JhmL

And right in the middle of the solo too, how rude!
http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo

That it’s fake makes a lot of sense; as mentioned in the Reddit thread, earthquakes here in Melbourne are rare as hell and spook the crap out of us; this is only the second or third one anywhere near this strong that I’ve felt, and I’m 37. Maybe a Japanese or San Franciscan camera operator could be so chilled, but no Melburnian, I bet…

Funny how that wasn’t enough to cause anyone in four news networks to check… also, I felt it almost as strongly as it appeared in the vid (like 3/4), and the duration was far shorter, maybe a third of that amount of activity tops.
- pdffs
  
  Nah, it rolled on for a fair while…
luneborg andreas

Show must go on?
TheKaz1969

If only the cat were named Nero…
The Hamster King

Yeah, as an L.A. resident who’s been through a number of shakes, that “earthquake” didn’t ring true. They don’t come and go like that and they don’t sound like that … .
isawu

A little “Rock-n-Roll” music.

Cat playing guitar interrupted by earthquake

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