Karl 
OF MONTREAL, part of the Elephant 6 collective in Athens of the late 1990s — a group of bands like The Apples in Stereo and the Olivia Tremor Control — is now in version 2.0, adding David Bowie and Brian Eno to the Beach Boys and the Beatles as influences. Kevin Barnes admits to “some '80s stuff in there, too.” You can stream two each from the new The Sunlandic Twins and 2002's Satanic Panic in the Attic from MySpace. Those tunes and more are also downloadable at the band's website. You Ain't No Picasso kills music with two new tracks from the tour-only EP and a 2002 covers show including songs by The Who, David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, Big Star, The Beatles, Neil Young, The Kinks, The Velvet Underground and The Creation.
CAT POWER: Chan Marshall has canceled her entire American tour. Matador Records cited “health reasons” as the cause of the cancellation.
MARVIN GAYE looks to be the subject of a biopic starring Jesse L. Martin, focusing on the soul singer's final years.
COLIN MELOY: An Aquarium Drunkard is killing music by posting Meloy's EP of Shirley Collins covers.
NICK DRAKE killed himself, but was it a suicide? A recently surfaced note may shed light on the question.
NEIL YOUNG: New York magazine reviews the Jonathan Demme concert documentary, Heart of Gold.
SEEN YOUR VIDEO: The first video aired on MTV — “Video Killed the Radio Star,” by the Buggles.
JENNY LEWIS and BLAKE SENNETT: The Rilo Kiley duo garner ever more pub for their side projects. The staff at the Scotsman must be hot for Jenny, as she tells Richard Cromelin that the side projects refresh her and Blake for more RK albums, and tells Aidan Smith about the role of autobiography in her songs. Sennett gets to blurb the Elected's Sun, Sun, Sun a bit at Paste. Rabbit Fur Coat scores a 79 at Metacritic, while Sun, Sun, Sun scores a 63 (though much higher with “users”). The Jenny Lewis video has turned up on YouTube.
PUNK LOSES ANOTHER OUTPOST: First it was CBGB. Now, it's The Continental — a dive that once showcased the likes of Iggy Pop, Guns N' Roses, the Ramones and Patti Smith — that announces it will no longer have live bands.
JIM NOIR: A multi-instrumentalist from the same Manchester suburb as Badly Drawn Boy, A Certain Ratio and James is profiled in London's Guardian. He's streaming his album from his website. The Guardian namechecks Brian Wilson with some justification, though some of it is more like other strands of Cali-folk-psych.
RYAN ADAMS put out three albums this year; gripes about quantity over quality have prompted New York magazine and Stylus to compile “best of” mixes.
T. REX: Three more deluxe T. Rex and Bolan reissues and a collection of Work in Progress are reviewed on the Pitchfork.
YUPSTERS: The phenomenon of the indie-yuppie has spread as far as Singapore. Mr C Y Choong works in the oil business, but visits yupster heaven Pitchforkmedia.com religiously.
REESE WITHERSPOON'S stalkerazzo photog — charged with battery and child endangerment after pestering Reese and her kids at a theme park last fall — has apparently been found dead.
LOVE MONKEY should be on tonight. The Toronto Star covers the integral role of music in the show. The Seattle Times looks at the import of TV exposure for indie rock generally.
KATE MOSS is helping Colin Farrell with rehab?
MORGAN FREEMAN is slated to play Duke Ellington in a movie about the Ellington orchestra's tour of Iraq, which included CIA spies in the entourage.
THE GRAMMYS are tomorrow night. Chicago Tribune critic Greg Kot writes that infoglut makes them seem less relevant to more people each year. The Envelope has Kot and others handicap the major races. The Envelope also notes that these days, a single Grammy may go to dozens of people.
AN OSCARS GUIDE, courtesy of Entertainment Weekly, to help sort out Huffman from Hoffman.
BASIC INSTINCT 2 has been negotiated down to a hard-R rating after an initial NC-17 from the MPAA. NYDN gossips Rush & Molloy were told that Stone refused to use a body double. “Believe me, she's still hot,” says one guy who's seen the action. Or you could peek at the NSFW promo reel or the screen caps at Egotastic.
BRADGELINA: The latest marriage rumor centers on Ireland. London's Sun claims that Jennifer Aniston believes the break-up of their marriage was “karma” for telling everyone how blissful it was. But one of Aniston's friends was busy telling Page Six that Pitt reall is “missing a sensitivity chip.”
COURTNEY LOVE has been writing new material in rehab, from which she was recently discharged.
KIM BASINGER and ALEC BALDWIN continue to torture each other, which would be a dictionary definition of “just desserts” if their child was not stuck in the middle.
TRAILERS REMIXED: Fight Club as a romantic comedy and the timely trailer for Brokeback to the Future.
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN: Speaking of which, as noted here the past few days, some Academy members are loathe to watch the gay cowboy movie. But it seems that hetero guys in San Francisco aren't keen on the idea, either. Oddly, the critic's suggestions at the link don't include his best suggestion, which is to take a woman. After all, having identified it as a “date movie,” he should realize that single guys probably weren't going to stampede to it by themselves, even without the gay angle.
BRITNEY SPEARS has reportedly been approached by several weight loss companies to undergo their plans and become a spokesgal, according to the obscure tabloid Celebrity Living.
IRAQ: At Iraq the Model, Omar reports that “the latest meetings among the political leaders look much like meeting between tribal leaders when they try to solve a problem… The key is food!” Iraqi police arrested the fourth-ranking figure in Al-Qaeda in Iraq, state television said Sunday, while officials are investigating whether the group's leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had fled to neighboring Iran. Sunni Arabs have formed their own militia to counter Shi'ite and Kurdish forces, now that their tactical alliance with al Qaeda has unraveled. The Defense Dept. is tripling spending to combat increasingly powerful IEDs.
CARTOON JIHAD: At least five people have been killed in protests and riots against Danish cartoons satirizing the Prophet Muhammad. Mobs in Iran firebombed the Danish embassy and threw stones and firecrackers at the Austrian embassy. The Iranian government cut all trade ties with Denmark. The weekend riot in Beirut was well-planned and known in advance, which may bear on the question of why there were loads of Danish flags ready to burn across the Mideast. At Iraq the Model, Omar suggests that almost none of the rioters have seen the cartoons. I suppose that's possible, though anyone who wants to see the cartoons can find them — in this Flickr gallery, for example.
NSA SURVEILLANCE: The Senate Judiciary Cmte held a hearing on the program that Google News shows the press to be calling a “domestic spying” program, though it involves international telephone calls. We learned that a number of Senators think Congress has the last word on warrantless collection of foreign surveillance, while the Bush Administration believes otherwise. Of course, the Clinton Administration believed there are cases where the Pres. could decline to enforce a statute that he views as unconstitutional, and that in extraordinary circumstances, national security considerations would justify ignoring federal wiretapping statutes. It's a textbook separation-of-powers dispute. But with no Senator demanding the eavesdropping stop, let alone threatening to cut off funding for the program, it suggests the Senate is more interested in who has power than in anyone's civil liberties.
FEZNICK, an aspiring celebrity kangaroo, underwent lip surgery because he was bitten by a wolf at a Hollywood animal farm. Of course, we hear this story from all sorts of aspiring celebrities before they get the collagen injections…
BIRDS can recognize different languages, just like monkeys, mice and other mammals.
SHARK interrupts an ocean swimming race in Australia.
“A HERD OF COWS kicked my car…” is among the freak animal accident claims reported by British drivers last year.
