ANIMAL COLLECTIVE:  "Peacebone" is the first video/single from the collective's new album, Strawberry Jam, which comes out next week.  If you have not heard the band, I should add that the music may be much different from what the still above might suggest.

THE GO! TEAM:  MuchMusic is streaming the new album, Proof Of Youth, in advance of its release next week.  (Thx, Chromewaves.)  Team leader Ian Parton talks to Drowned in Sound about working with Chuck D, licensing songs for ads, and keeping it trashy.

INDIE SELLS OUT:  The Ads of the Weird blog slags TIAA-CREF's use of Bob Mould's "See A Little Light" (with video), though not Mould himself: "The issue is that advertisers think co-opting our favorite songs will get us to buy their products instead of just ruining the songs for us."  BONUS:  Be sure to read Mould's response in comments.  (Thanks, LHB.)

ROGUE WAVE is streaming their new album in full from RogueSpace.

THE MOST PERFECT SONGS are led by a song that loop-samples the Rolling Stones, according to a songwriters' poll conducted by Q magazine.  The songwriters' individual picks are better, and come with Tube video.  However, you won't get why Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody picked Marlena Shaw's version of "California Soul" -- the version my friends know I favor -- unless you stream that last link.  That drum break just slays me.

AMY WINEHOUSE, for all of the bad pub she brings on herself, can sing, as her unplugged version of "Love Is A Losing Game" from the Mercury Prize awards shows.

PYLON:  The Athens combo releases its long out-of-print debut album, Gyrate, as a remastered and expanded CD in October.  The band has come off hiatus in recent years, but their "final" show from 1983 is Tubed in three segments -- Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.  I was never a huge fan, but you can certainly hear tell they come from the same Georgia stew as the B-52s and R.E.M.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN:  You can watch the "Radio Nowhere" video exclusively at Amazon, with fleeting glimpses of the E Street Band.

BO DIDDLEY has been released from the hospital and is now resting at home, after suffering a heart attack during a routine medical exam on Aug. 24.

THE KNACK:  He's A Whore has posted tracks from "Live at Carnegie Hall 1979," which he calls "perhaps the pinnacle of Knack-mania, if you will."   You can stream it via the ol' HM.

BLOC PARTY:  For some reason, this band never quite jelled for me, but singer Kele Okereke has a nice story about their security putting Madonna in a headlock at Live Earth.

SIR PAUL McCARTNEY is a chick magnet, keeping company with supermodel Elle Macpherson and later attracting the attention of Natalie Imbruglia at GQ magazine's Men of the Year ceremony.

JUDE LAW has been arrested for allegedly assaulting a photographer outside the actor's home in Maida Vale, West London.

BRITNEY SPEARS has been cleared of recent complaints to child welfare workers, but one of her goons has been charged with one count of battery in connection with an altercation with a photographer last month.  Meanwhile, Vegas magician Criss Angel is a "press whore" who's just "using" the pop tart to get more attention and fame for himself, friends of his say.  Nice friends, even if honest!

LUCIANO PAVAROTTI:  Sadly, it sounds like the fat lady is warming up... and she sings.

ANNA NICOLE SMITH IS STILL DEAD, but Larry Birkhead is explaining why he and fmr rival Howard K. Smith attended a gay pride parade.  NTTAWWT.

BRADGELINA: Pitt laments losing some of his looks at 40, but is otherwise happy that Jolie got him involved in social causes.

THE DARJEELING LIMITED:  TimeOut London reports from the Venice Film Festival that Wes Anderson's latest film finds the talented director on good form but very much playing to the gallery.  Before the screening, Anderson presented a seventeen-minute short called Hotel Chevalier-- originally conceived to play before the main feature, but which may only be available to see online.  The short provides some "backstory" to the feature and allegedly has Natalie Portman nude -- but how could you not show that before the main feature?  Anyway, it's a good enough excuse to re-link the trailer on the Tube and in glorious Quicktime,

OWEN WILSON ex-gf Kate Hudson has been trying to get in touch with him in his time of need, but his family "doesn't want her anywhere near him." NYDN's Gatecrasher reports that Owen's ex has been "very frustrated" that she's getting the cold shoulder from the Wilson clan, who "don't think Kate is good for him."

TOMMY LEE and a blond party girl "were flat-out (bleep)ing" on a banquette at Dune in the Hamptons on Sunday night, according to multiple witnesses.

ZACH BRAFF, the Garden State auteur and toxic bachelor, was almost as public with Roswell star Shiri Appleby at the Four Seasons on Hawaii's Big Island over the Labor Day weekend.

BRIDGET MOYNIHAN is already wheeling her newborn around without dad Tom Brady.

NICOLE KIDMAN let slip that she was secretly engaged for a short time after her marriage to Tom Cruise and before she wed Keith Urban, to a man she refused to name.  Page Six says it was Lenny Kravitz.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG got her backpedal in motion once PETA heard her comments rationalizing Michael Vick's dogfighting.

SEXY STRUT STUDY SHOCKER:  The "study" reported in London's Telegraph last week, purporting to show that Jessica Alba has the sexiest walk in the world was corporate flack from Clarion Communications, a PR firm that reps a hair removal product!  Internal e-mail reveals that Alba actually ranked seventh in survey data and had the second-best hip-to-waist ratio.  Professor Weber, cited by the PR firm and the media, tells the Guardian's Ben Woodacre: "The Clarion press release was not approved by me and is factually incorrect and misleading in suggesting there has been any serious attempt to do serious mathematics here. No 'team of Cambridge mathematicians' has been involved..."

SWAZILAND:  Tens of thousands of bare-breasted virgins lined up for inspection by King Mswati III on Sunday in Swaziland's annual reed dance.  The 39-year-old king, who already has 13 wives, sometimes controversially uses the occasion to select a new bride.

TERROR in GERMANY:  The three suspected terrorists seized Tuesday were allegedly planning bomb attacks with more explosive power than those used in the Madrid and London terror attacks.  According to German Federal Prosecutor Monika Harms, the three men belong to a German cell of the terror group "Islamic Jihad Union," a group that reportedly originated in Uzbekistan, but whose German network has recently attracted recruits of other nationalities. Investigators also suspect it may have established contact with Al Qaeda's high command.  The case also has possible Turkish links which trouble some terrorism experts.  Threats against USS facilities in Germany seem to have been bubbling up since last April.

IRAQ:  CBS anchor Katie Couric is in country, noting that despite mutual distrust, Sunnis and Shiites are working together in the ISF to fight AQI in places like Anbar province.  The Fighting 6th Marines report that the Iraqi Army has ceded their counterinsurgency operations in Fallujah to the Iraqi Police.  Blogger Bill Ardolino is doing another embed and reports that the positive change in Fallujah since his January visit is astounding.  The Christian Science Monitor reports that as security concerns recede, Anbar's tribal chiefs are turning to the US for more mundane community needs.  The Times of London reports that the former chief of staff of the Provisional IRA, who is now Deputy First Minister in Northern Ireland's power-sharing executive, was one of 30 participants at the four-day seminar for Iraqi Sunni and Shia groups held at a secret location in Finland.  Lord Alderdice, the former Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, was also present at the talks, as were representatives from South Africa.

THE IRAQI POLICE FORCE is so rife with corruption it should be scrapped entirely, according to a new independent assessment led by retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones.  The Pentagon opposes the idea, but is attempting to reform the police without a sweeping dissolution of the body.  I would note that one of the big criticisms of the Bush Admin's Iraq policy has been that the old Iraqi Army should not have been disbanded, because it put all the old Baathists out of work and helped make them insurgents.  That's arguable, insofar as  keeping a Baathist Army would have caused some reaction by the Shiite majority -- and probably not a good reaction.  But if you buy the criticism, disbanding the Iraqi Police could similarly exacerbate the problem of Shiite militias.

THE SQUIRREL THREAT:  One week after a bushy-tailed rodent bedeviled the New York Yankees, a squirrel disrupted play between the Pittsbugh Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals (Part1, Part 2).  Coincidence?  I think not.  BONUS: The Benny Hill music is the icing on the cake.

THE ANT THREAT:  Kevin and Gail Gued were attacked by dozens of stinging ants in their honeymoon suite at the Country Inn & Suites in Brandon, FL.  Pics and video at the link.

GOAT SACRIFICE seems like an unlikely method of aircraft maintenance.

MYSTERY CAT BEAST stalks the suburbs of Caracas, Venezuela, as the carcasses of small animals turn up in the wake of its eerie howling.

A COKED-UP CAT had trouble walking, but paced incessantly, according to reports in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery.  I almost missed this story, assuming it was Pete Doherty's cat.