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Rod Stewart, Prefab Sprout, Cutout Bin, 3:10 to Yuma, Hermaphrodite Pony   Printer-friendly page   Send this story to someone
Friday, September 07, 2007 - 08:00 AM
Posted by: Karl

Karl

THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:

...with ROD STEWART & RONNIE WOOD!  Let's call it an acoustic set from 1993, as my other adjective might alert copyright holders.  Your setlist is "Handbags and Gladrags," from An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down. Wood then appears for "Cut Across Shorty," from Gasoline Alley, and a whole bunch from the  Every Picture Tells a Story album: "Every Picture Tells a Story," "Maggie May," Tom Hardin's "Reason to Believe," Curtis Mayfield's "People Get Ready" (not from that LP), and  "Mandolin Wind." "Stay with Me" is from The Faces' A Nod Is as Good as a Wink...To a Blind Horse and Sam Cooke's "Having A Party" was previously unreleased.

PREFAB SPROUT:  Tom Terrell of NPR's All Things Considered goes over-the-top in praising the Steve McQueen LP upon its deluxe reissue, but it is a good album in recurring rotation at the Music Works in the mid-80s under the name Two Wheels Good.  NPR is streaming several tracks from the original and bonus tracks, though not "Faron Young," which was my pick to click.

WILCO frontman Jeff Tweedy would like to give his audiences a big bag of shhh.

OKKERVIL RIVER:  The Portland Mercury claims that "If more proof is needed of the clever wordplay of (Will) Sheff, 'Plus Ones' -- the perfectly penned ode to love songs, complete with a dizzying amount of lyrical references -- is all you need to hear. Sheff adds numbers (literally, plus one) to well-known lyrics, as he declares, 'No one wants to hear about your 97th tear,' discusses 'the 51st way to leave your lover,' and my personal favorite, 'No one wants a tune about the 100th luftballon'..."

THE SADIES guitarist/singer Dallas Good talks to Chart attck about recording their new LP in Spain with ex-Jayhawk Gary Louris producing.  You can still stream all of New Seasons via YepRoc, which aptly describes the band's sound as an "inspired amalgam of psychedelic country rock, surf, bluegrass and Ennio Morricone-inspired instrumentals."

LUCIANO PAVAROTTI:  The late legend sings "It's A Man's Man's Man's World" with James Brown, "My First, My Last, My Everything" with Barry White, "Too Much Love Will Kill You" with Queen, "Perfect Day" with Lou Reed, and "Miss Sarajevo" with U2.

SIR PAUL McCARTNEY:  Live at Amoeba Records this past June, via KCRW.  Beep beep beep beep beep, yeah.  (Someone in his band has got a fee-vah.)  He also talks about Beatles songs, the new album, how he came to hook up with Starbucks, and the impact of the Internet: "You've got to remember, I go back to vinyl... I've been through tape cassettes, and CDs, and now the Internet."

BRIGHT EYES is doing a gig with the Los Angeles Philharmonic September 29 at the Hollywood Bowl.  Yo La Tengo and M. Ward open.

NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL:  False 45th has posted one of Jeff Mangum's final shows, billed as the "World of Wild Beards Incorporated."  You can stream it via the ol' HM.

JOE ELY:  The Texas honky-tonk singer and guitarist talks about The Flatlanders and plays a few for the World Cafe, which you can stream via NPR.

THE CUTOUT BIN:  This Friday's fortuitous finds from the ol' HM (and zShare) are: The Vogues - Five O'Clock World; The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night; The Hollies - Bus Stop; The Hombres - Let It All Hang Out; Them - I Can Only Give You Everything (partial); Bob Dylan - Tombstone Blues; Rolling Stones - Brown Sugar (alt-take with Eric Clapton on slide); The Allman Brothers Band - Midnight Rider (live at World Cafe); James Brown - It's A Man's Man's Man's World; Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - How Do I Let A Good Man Down?; Sam Cooke - Twistin' The Night Away; The Jackson 5 - ABC; Bay City Rollers - Saturday Night; Placebo - 20th Century Boy; Iggy Pop - Lust for Life; Rush - Working Man; The Replacements - F*** School (nsfw, obvs.); Weezer - Uptown Girl (Billy Joel); Crowded House - Don't Dream It's Over; and The Beach Boys - All Summer Long.

3:10 TO YUMA:  I'm not a huge fan of Westerns, but I went to the sneak preview as a service to you, the Pate visitor.  James Mangold's remake of the 1957 Glenn Ford flick works primarily because of the casting.  Christian Bale (our hero) does what he does best -- single-minded intensity bordering on obsession -- while Russell Crowe (our villain) does what he does best -- irritating charm.  That last bit I mean in a good way; the role requires charisma as well as malice and in this iteration, some of the psychological skill of Hannibal Lecter -- you don't want Ben Wade inside your head.  The rest of the cast does a worthy job as well, including Alan Tudyk, whom I must mention because he is Alan Tudyk.  The final sequence -- which was the weak spot of the original movie -- is significantly altered... but it's the weak spot of this version also, mostly due to an inadequate set-up.  For that reason, I am probably not as enthusiastic in my praise as some of the blurbs I hear in the TV commercials.  And I don't know if I would be making Oscar predictions.  But it's still pretty darn good.

NOW SHOWING:  In addition to 3:10 To Yuma, which is currently scoring 81 percent on the ol' Tomatometer, this weekend's other wide release is Shoot 'Em Up -- an over-the-top action flick starring Clive Owen, Paul Giamatti and Monica Bellucci currently scoring 70 percent.

CHRISTIAN BALE talks to The A.V. Club about why he chose to take the 3:10 to Yuma.

X-RATED HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL:  The nude photo of Vanessa Hudgens floating around the Internet is the real deal.  A bunch of websites are claiming that execs at Disney have parted ways with Hudgens and have decided to replace her with Cheetah Girls star Adrienne Bailon, but the linked story at US Weekly doesn't say that... now.

DREW BARRYMORE was... wait for it... caught canoodling actor Justin Long, her co-star in the movie adaptation of He's Just Not That Into You.

OWEN WILSON:  The NYP's Cindy Adams sorta explains why his circle thinks Kate Hudson was a bad influence on him... and it may not be what you think.

JENNA FISCHER and her writer/director husband, James Gunn, have separated after more than six years of marriage, the couple tell People magazine in an exclusive statement... and on Gunn's MySpace page.  Really doesn't get more exclusive than that.  As I noted last week, you can see Jenna in a Wisely video.  And if you can't wait until the end of the month for Pam, The Office Summer Vacation is on the Tube.

LINDSAY LOHAN reunited with her estranged ex-con dad at the Cirque Lodge rehab facility, where he believed he would be joining in a therapy session.

GEORGE CLOONEY is sporting a beard.  And he has a new babe on his arm.

DID GLOBAL WARMING boost the Summer box office?  Variety speculates.

LEONARDO DiCAPRIO would likely beg to differ.  The actor's enviro documentary, The 11th Hour, has been a total bust at the box office, grossing under 500K after 18 days in release.  Reportedly, when the film was shown to journalists at Cannes, nearly the entire room fell asleep.  BONUS:  Roger Friedman, after reporting these tidbits, adds that "this certainly is not meant to belittle the idea of global warming," citing the melting snowcaps on Mount Kilimanjaro -- which researchers say is probably not due to global warming.

REDACTED:  Brian De Palma's new film inspired by the rape and killing of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl by US soldiers who also murdered her family stunned the Venice Film Festival, with shocking images that left some viewers in tears.  "The movie is an attempt to bring the reality of what is happening in Iraq to the American people," he told reporters, apparently believing that US troops committing war crimes is typical of what is happening there.  Entertainment Weekly's Chris Willman seems unimpressed: "If Arabs upset at the American presence in Iraq kidnapped some American actors and forced them to make a propaganda film, they'd be hard-pressed to make one much more simple-minded than Redacted - though at least theirs probably wouldn't resemble a stagy, overacted, off-off-Broadway play quite as much as this one does..."  DePalma's 1989 flick Casualties of War is set in Vietnam, but also focuses on US soldiers raping a girl, so this is a theme that clearly strikes some chord with DePalma.

SAMUEL L. JACKSON dreams of making a comeback as a football player.

WIND POWER from politicians beats wind power from turbines.

TERROR in GERMANY:  A US intelligence intercept of suspicious communications between Pakistan and Stuttgart was the initial break that ultimately led to the arrest this week of three suspected Muslim militants accused of plotting massive car-bomb attacks here against Americans, US and German officials told the Los Angeles Times on Thursday.

IRAQ:  About 26000 US and Iraqi forces are taking part in an offensive against al Qaeda in Iraq in northern Iraq, but (afaik) CNN seems to be the only major media outlet to notice.  Gen. Petraeus has told Pres.Bush he wants to maintain heightened troop levels in Iraq well into next year but could accept the pullback of about 4000 troops beginning in January.  Realistically, US troops likely have to start rotating out around next April.  Coalition forces announced the capture of "a highly-sought individual suspected of being an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps-Qods Force affiliate" during a raid in Karbala.

IRAQ and the MEDIA:  Yesterday, the Washington Post ran a story headlined, "Experts Doubt Drop In Violence in Iraq," which airs accusations that the US military is "cherry-picking positive indicators," but then cherry-picks negative indicators, makes a flagrant error and contradicts information the paper published on Tuesday.  I wrote a bit on Tuesday about the dubious "unofficial" Iraqi statistics the media has been touting.  Separately, the CIA (whose record on Iraq has been less than inspiring) has a problem with how the US military classifies deaths as sectarian killings.  However, the WaPo has no problem understanding it, as the paper called execution-style killings "a key indicator of the level of sectarian violence" back in May, when those statistics were looking bad for the US.  A story from NPR relays complaints that the military does not classify mass casualty bombings as sectarian killings, though -- according to the WaPo -- such attacks are most often linked to AQI, who use them to try to spark sectarian violence and influence US public opinion.  The different numbers can be useful for understanding different phenomena, as long as the methodology is consistent.  A SIDE NOTE:  In the NPR piece, former Army Col. Doug MacGregor says the increasing cooperation between US forces and Sunni tribes in Anbar started more than 18 months ago, long before the "surge."  True, but it does reflect the military's improvement in counter-insurgency tactics... and the WaPo totally blew reporting that story, too.  As popular support is crucial to the survival of an insurgency, the negligence of the WaPo (and many other media outlets) in missing the turning of the Sunni tribes for so long cannot be overstated.

TOOTSIE the HERMAPHRODITE PONY finds friendship with Derek the Donkey.

THE SQUIRREL THREAT:  A 3-year-old boy, a Florida Highway Patrol trooper and another adult were hurt on Wednesday afternoon in a bizarre attack by a squirrel on a day care playground in Orange County, FL.  Video at the link.  BONUS:  The Yankee Stadium squirrel has been nicknamed "Lucky," as the the Bronx Bombers go 4-for-4 when the brazen squirrel has appeared atop the right-field foul pole.

A BEAR CUB left its sibling and mother in the tree behind City Hall in Aspen CO, ambled down the alley and into the back door of the Thrift Shop.

A BULL ELK failed to master a swingset in Estes Park, CO.  Video at the link.

MONTY the MEERKAT photographed his family at Longleat Safari Park in Wiltshire, England.  Pics at the link.

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