SYLVIA HAUSER UPDATE: You old skool Pate fans from Ames may be interested to learn that Sylvia's fiancee is back from the sandbox and they have welcomed an as-yet unnamed Harley-Davidson Softail Fat Boy into their family, as pictured on the far right. At the far left is Lady Macbeth, next to Lady Catherine. Sylvia has refused to name her bike, which is very Sylvia. Lex apparently got quite a deal on the bike, so we need not worry about the unscrupulous dealers some soldiers face after coming home. Moreover, he got quite a deal on the fiancee, so he did not need the Army seminar on avoiding marrying a jerk.
ROBERT POLLARD misses the guys from the band, but not the GbV brand: “To me, it was more like a guild than a band. It had been through probably 40 or 50 people, if not more.” From A Compund Eye, which is currently scoring an 80 at Metacritic, is streaming in glorious Quicktime via Merge Records.
WE'RE JAMMIN': I don't know how I missed this apparently regular featue in the Guardian, which has Pascal Wyse interviewing and playing trombone with artists like Robyn Hitchcock and Jose Gonzalez, with MP3 downloads of the results.
BRIAN EPSTEIN is the subject of a feature film, The Fifth Beatle. Screenwriter Vivek Tiwary: “I was hoping to find a blueprint for success in the music management world.” Instead, he found “this tremendously inspirational human story.”
THE COOKIE MONSTER is interviewed about his influence on death metal.
SONIC YOUTH: Thurston Moore tells CMJ that the departure of guitarist Jim O'Rourke has shaped the sound of the upcoming record: “This record is just a far more straight up rock and roll album for us…”
DOMINO, the record label of the Arctic Monkeys and Franz Ferdinand, must be doing something right, so the Independent looked into it.
MOTOWN ARCHIVES were razed for Superbowl parking. There are a lot of fingers being pointed at each other.
THE JAM were a way of life. London's Guardian quotes ex-NME writer Adrian Thrills: “They did become huge, but there was a real dialogue between the band and their fans. And it transcended what the Pistols and the Clash had done, didn't it? Those bands were singing about Britain, but they weren't singing about their audience.” Weller warms up for the Brits' Lifetime Achievement award by slagging past recipents like Bob Geldof, Sting and Freddie Mercury. Let's salute Weller with the video for “Going Underground” as well as an excellent live TV appearance covering the Kinks' “David Watts.”
WATERLOO SUNSET: Ray Davies reveals that the Kinks classic was originally set in Liverpool and addresssed the death of the city's music scene. And we have the vintage video.
JOHNNY CASH: In London's Guardian, John Harris frets that the UK release of Walk The Line will cause a rash of Cash hype.
ARCTIC MONKEYS defend their album cover, a photo of a lad smoking a cigarette. YouTube hosts the live video for “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor,” which looks like a knock off of The Old Grey Whistle Test.
BAY CITY ROLLERS Les McKeown and Pat McGlynn were cleared of plotting a £16,000 drugs deal Friday.
GARY GLITTER is to stand trial in Vietnam at the end of this month for allegedly committing obscene acts against two children.
SMASHING PUMPKINS: Sources say Billy Corgan and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin are set to begin work on a new studio album, but James Iha and D'arcy Wretzky are not participating in the reunion at this point. Melissa Auf Der Maur would like to join in, but hasn't been asked.
HEATHER LOCKLEAR'S announcement that she had filed for divorce was news to her husband, Richie Sambora. ABC News also posted an MP3 of his reaction.
MADONNA and GUY RITCHIE are working overtime to prove their marriage isn't falling apart, following reports that Madge was spending much of her time with her record producer Stuart Price, working on her music.
SHERYL CROW and LANCE ARMSTRONG are splitsville. Reports that their engagement was off circulated in early January.
OBITS: Grandpa Munster went from the undead to the dead at 95, while Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique and the the first president of NOW, died at 85. She had not stopped being a feminist, she said, “but women as a special separate interest group are not my concern any more.”
CHRISTOPHER PENN was buried Saturday, and it wouldn't be a Penn family funeral without Sean going after a (ghoulish) paparazzo. But the police may really go after Mark Ruffalo, who snatched the memory card from the photographer's camera.
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Your top three were When a Stranger Calls, Big Momma's House 2 and Nanny McPhee. But the Oscar contenders that went into wider release made gains — Brokeback Mountain moved to fourth from sixth, Walk the Line went from twelfth to ninth, and Capote leapt 12 spots, from 24th to twelfth.
WERNER HERZOG, the director of Grizzly Man, was shot by a crazed fan during a recent interview with the BBC. He carried on with the interview, insisting, “It was not a significant bullet. I am not afraid.”
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN: Tony Curtis offers some confirmation that Academy members are not watching it. While supposed Hollywood progressives avoid the movie, it has performed strongly in Montana and other “red states.”
KATE MOSS wants to become the first supermodel in space; the trip will cost her $200,000. She will be cast in bronze with her feet behind her ears. And while she refused to incriminate herself under police questioning, the supposedly sober supermodel may be forced to answer questions about her cocaine usage if she wants to continue to sue London's Channel 5 for libel.
TOM-KAT UPDATE: Holmes is now co-signing Cruise's unsolicited letters informing the recipients that donations had been made in their name to the Church of Scientology.
SCARLETT JOHANNSON is denying reports that she is dating Hard-Fi frontman Richard Archer, claiming she has never met him.
JESSICA SIMPSON has signed a 35 million dollar pact to keep making crappy records for Columbia.
BRADGELINA survives an attempted attack by Team Aniston in Berlin. The duo were dining at a Berlin restaurant when a woman stormed in and screamed: “Where is that home-wrecking Angelina?” Meanwhile, there's a rumor that Jolie may join the cast of Sin City 2.
SARAH JESSICA PARKER thinks that America's obsession with celebrity is diverting the public away from pressing political and social issues. Which was just fine when the media was focused on Sex in the City, but now the spotlight is on people less talented than she: “All we talk about now are 'celebrities'. They call themselves actors, they get paid as actors and sometimes, they're paid more than me. But often these people have done absolutely nothing.”
TOMMY LEE nearly got duped into hooking up with a transsexual while partying in Toronto.
BOB GUCCIONE has been thrown out of his penthouse.
NAOMI WATTS is converting to Buddhism.
ASHLEY JUDD says, “It's unconscionable to breed with the number of children who are starving to death in impoverished countries,” but admits that someday she might feel a different impulse. In the meantime, let's hope her racing star husband Dario Franchitt gets to practice a lot.
KATE BECKINSALE: The only reason I could think of to see the widely-panned Underworld: Evolution was hot werewolf-on-vampire eroticism. Thanks to people killing movies on the Internet, I now know I don't need to see it, but you can judge for yourselves.
IRAQ: Army Col. Jeffrey Buchanan says Iraq's police commandos are becoming a major spearhead of security in the country but must learn to temper battlefield aggression with democratic values. The Washington Post reports on progresss toward turning over Mosul to local forces. Such forces are arresting batches of suspected insurgents in Baghdad and Basra, particularly along the well-known road airport road.
CARTOON JIHAD: Muslims upset about Danish cartoons portraying Islam as violent stormed and torched the Danish embassy in Syria and the one in Beirut. Others were content to preach beheading those responsible or to carry signs saying “You dug your grave — lie in it,” “Massacre those who insult Islam,” “Behead those who insult Islam,” and “Freedom, Go to Hell.” There are rare reports of some Muslims opposing these protests. Two Jordanian newspaper editors who published the cartoons have been arrested. The trad press ran stories abut the US government “blasting” the cartoons and siding with Muslims, but when the AP, Reuters and AFP all gave different names to the State Dept. spokesperson, I thought I should check into it. All three had the wrong name, and spokesman Sean McCormack was both more diplomatic and supportive of free speech than the press would have us believe. The L.A. Times supports free speech and criticizes the response from governments in the Middle East and Europe, but adds, “For our part, The Times has not reprinted these insensitive images, even as a means of shedding light on the controversy in Europe.” Fair enough: some of the cartoons do seem offensive in their overbeadth and they need not be republished to defend the right of others to publish them. The Boston Globe, otoh, has a double-standard for speech blaspheming Islam and Christianity. So does CNN, which notes at the first link that it hasn't shown the cartoons, but had no problem showing a painting of the Virgin Mary spattered with dung.
NANOTECH: At Corante, Derek Lowe takes a skeptical look at claims made for Nanotech Wonder Water.
ONE MUTT OR TWO? A mixed Chihuahua-rat terrier is at the center of a dogfight in MI, as a man and a veterinary technician each claim it is theirs. The judge has not decided whether the dog will be called as a witness. Don't we all know this will end with each person standing at opposite ends of the courtroom, calling to the dog in the center?
WILD CATS AND DOGS raise a four-year-old boy in Russia. It's in London's Sun, so take it to the bank.
COUGAR CAUGHT in Willmar, MN — pretty far from the nearest wild cougar population in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
WHALE SOUL FOR SALE: The Northern Bottlenosed Whale that died two weeks ago after swimming up the River Thames into central London is is the subject of a sad eBay joke.
FIONA THE GUINEA PIG sounds an alarm, saves most of an apartment building from an electrical fire.