THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:
SPLIT ENZ is mounting a reunion tour down under. They are expected to attract a total crowd bigger than anything the New Zealanders managed in their original 12-year existence, including in the early 1980s, when Split Enz had three consecutive No. 1 albums in Australia. Probably because they have promised to not dress like this. And yes, I do have a copy of True Colours with the design laser-etched into the vinyl. It was a Christmas present (it’s the red cover). UPDATE: I found the video for “I Got You.” Not as funny as the picture, but close… plus a catchy tune.
FRIDAY TIMEWASTER: Escapa! Wasting lots of time, most likely in very small segments.
JOHNNY ROTTEN has slammed the late Joe Strummer as a hypocrite for preaching a socialism while living a posh lifestyle: “He was trying to con us. In a nice way and for the right reasons but once you start lying, it carries on and on and on.”
PETE TOWNSHEND confirms a a new Who album and tour for the summer.
VIC CHESNUTT talks to UGA's Red and Black about the Undertow Orchestra Tour featuring Chesnutt, David Bazan (ex-Pedro the Lion and Headphones), Mark Eitzel (of American Music Club) and Will Johnson (of Centro-Matic and South San Gabriel): “We’ll be playing each other’s songs and backing up one another at the show and who knows, maybe we’ll even write some new songs together.”
ANDREW BIRD talks about getting re-inspired for a new album and his use of instruments like violin, glockenspiel and whistling: “There's enough bass, drum, guitar bands out playing pop and rock 'n' roll. My big beef is that what's mostly being thrust at you is loaded down. It's much more affecting to do less and be subtle.”
DAVID BYRNE has posted a gallery of his tree drawings. By “tree,” he often means diagram, but some of the trees look very much like trees. Because he's David Byrne.
GREATEST HITS, R.I.P.: Sure, digital downloads have technological limts on their quality, but they are killing “Greatest Hits” collections, as people can grab tracks like Survivor's “Eye of the Tiger,” Lynyrd Skynyrd's “Sweet Home Alabama,” and even Vanilla Ice's “Ice Ice Baby” in the hundreds of thousands without having to buy an album.
BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE, including Leslie Feist, played “7/4 (Shoreline)” on Late Night with Conan O'Brien Tuesday night. And someone is killing television. PLUS: Feist's surreal solo video for “Mushaboom.”
LISA LOEB: Stereogum has a multimedia roundup of the one-hit wonder now starring in the #1 Single reality dating show on E! So if you want a remix of her hit and video of her walking around in a thong, it's your one-stop.
BONO attended the National Prayer Breakfast to promote The one Campaign: “Please join me in praying I don't say anything we all regret.”
SAM COOKE: NPR has an audio feature and book excerpt from music historian Peter Guralnick's Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke. Guralnick could send it around as a movie pitch, methinks.
SEEN YOUR VIDEO: Several clips of the early Replacements at the 7th Street Entry — start with “Customer” and “Rattlesnake.”
KATE MOSS UPDATE: The cocaine case against the supposedly sober supermodel is probably dead, as Moss refused to incriminate herself and the Brits apparently cannot use the photographic evidence.
BRADGELINA: Fans of Sonic Youth. Who knew? Anyway, tabs are reporting that Jolie is selling her UK mansion, with the idea of the pair building or renovating a place in the US. And Jolie told Nightline that she wants to have and adopt a few more children.
HEATHER LOCKLEAR is divorcing Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora after 11 years of marriage. For the record, no matter what you may hear, I had nothing to do with it.
SEPARATED AT BIRTH: The Bradgelina pics above reminded me to link to a bunch of “separated at births” from CityRag, starting with Ashlee Simpson and David Lee Roth.
NOW SHOWING: This weekend's big openers are the interracial romantic comedy Something New (a 62% Fresh on the Tomatometer) and the remake of When a Stranger Calls, which wasn't screened for critics, a big red flag, but one that may not matter to the movie's target demo. Also, a number of the Oscar contenders expand this weeked, including Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Good Night, and Good Luck, Mrs. Henderson Presents, and Munich.
SUPERBOWL: You can get a head start on the commercials, if that's the reason you watch. And given that the big game is in Detroit, Motown greats have a point in feeling kinda snubbed.
JOAQUIN PHOENIX: As if his car wreck last week wasn't strange enough, it turns out the Oscar nominated actor was rescued by German cult director Werner Herzog, who most recently put together the excellent documentary Grizzly Man, complete with soundtrack by Richard Thompson, which premieres on the Discovery Channel tonight.
GRIZZLY MAN was snubbed for an Oscar nom, despite being the best-reviewed feature documentary of the year, for reasons that remain shrouded in mystery. Then again The Aristocrats was also snubbed. It's part of an Academy tradition of snubbing films like Hoop Dreams, Crumb and The Thin Blue Line.
TOM-KAT punishes everyone who thought Holmes wasn't really pregnant. As fashion statements go, this is the one-fingered salute.
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN: L.A. Weekly columnist Nikki Finke reports that ” this year’s dirty little secret is the anecdotal evidence pouring in to me about hetero members being unwilling to screen Brokeback Mountain. She blames hypocritical hollywood homophobia, though this isn't a movie men would be rushing to see even without the gay element, i.e., this is basically a variation of a “chick flick.” It suggests that Crash may pull an upset win at the Oscars, as it did at the SAG Awards. Or that some people may vote for it sight unseen to make a statement in which they don't really believe.
BRITNEY SPEARS may have reached a new low if the rumored second pregnancy is true.
SIENNA MILLER: Her thing with Factory Girl co-star Hayden Christensen is over, if it ever existed in the first place. But maybe the next rumor will say otherwise.
ZACH BRAFF and MANDY MOORE are reportedly headed down the aisle.
TRAILERS REMIXED: Sleepless In Seattle as a horror movie is pretty good, but Shining remains the gold standard of the genre.
JESSICA SIMPSON and hubby Nick Lachey are having second thoughts about their divorce? Seems unlikely, with Josh Lucas and Jude Law lined up behind Maroon 5's Adam Levine to get into those Daisy Dukes. And with Lachey is launching a “social networking” website for teens, after learning that his name is one of the more frequent names used by predators to lure kids online. Yes, that's the broad side of a barn, isn't it?
JENNA JAMESON and JENNY McCARTHY apparently acted like a couple of ex-Panthers cheerleaders in the bathroom of the Hard Rock Cafe last Halloween, according to Jameson's account during an appearance on the Howard Stern show. I guess what happens in Vegas now gets broadcast on satellite radio.
CULT OF THE iPod: Pres. Bush, touting his State of the Union proposals, talks about his iPod as an example of the sciences — including nanotechnology — that change our lives.
IRAQ: Bill Roggio posts on progress in Ramadi, where foreign terrorists are being fought by the Iraqi Army and indigenous insurgent groups alike. At Iraq the Model, Omar has updates on political negotiations, Saddams trial and the fuel shortage — which is “now relatively over,” due to availability of imported gasoline at market prices. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' Spectrum takes a look at reconstruction, particularly of electricity generation and distributuion: “Most officials, Iraqis included, agree that there is more power available in Iraq now than there was before the 2003 war. However, that fact is less germane than most people realize, because the allocation of electric power has shifted seismically, and more or less in sync with the shift in political power. Basically, parts of Baghdad and central Iraq now get much less power than they did before the war, while parts of the south and north actually get considerably more.” I would suggest that most people have no idea that there is more power available, let alone that it's now being provided to the majority that was oppressed by Saddam.
THE WAR on CARTOONS: A weekly Lebanese magazine has published three of the 12 cartoons of Prophet Mohammed that created a storm in the Islamic world when they were published by a Danish daily. BTW, those cartoons were published in September and it seems that a Muslim delegation showed fabricated cartoons to the Arab League. Scott Burgess rounds up European media publishing the 'toons, but has seen “no evidence that any British paper has had the spine to publish the cartoons.” The BBC TV coverage blacked out parts of the cartoons. Note that in the US, the Joint Chiefs of Staff may write a letter to complain about a political cartoon, as opposed to surrounding offices and threatening to kidnap people or issuing a fatwa.
GARY BUSEY and BILLY ZANE star in a Turkish movie where American soldiers in Iraq crash a wedding and pump a little boy full of lead in front of his mother, kill dozens of innocent people with random machine gun fire, shoot the groom in the head, and drag those left alive to Abu Ghraib prison — where a Jewish doctor cuts out their organs, which he sells to rich people in New York, London and Tel Aviv.
PIGEONS' SMOG BLOG: Later this year, 20 pigeons will take to the skies above San Jose, California, each carrying a GPS receiver, air pollution sensors and a basic cellphone. They will measure levels of pollutants they encounter, and beam back their findings as text messages to a blog in real time.
DRUG PUPPIES: Colombian drug dealers smuggled heroin into the US by surgically implanting the powerful drug into puppies.
TASMANIAN DEVILS may be wiped out by a bizzare, infectious facial cancer.
POSSUM POSSESSION without a permit puts people at peril in New York.