Karl 
DESTROYER, New Pornographer Dan Bejar's other band, releases Rubies today; it scores an 8.5 on the Pitchfork: “structurally complex, thematically dense, and labyrinthine in its self-referentiality.” The whole album is streaming from Merge Records. CMJ has a legal download of “European Oils.”
OTHER NEW RELEASES: Arctic Monkeys and Eels have their albums streaming from AOL Music. Former Kink Ray Davies gets a US release of Other People's Lives. Cracker has two greatest hits packages one from Virgin Records and a re-recorded set the band encourages fans to buy instead. Ouch! There are also DVDs that take a critical review of The Jam and a glance inside the reclusive world of Syd Barrett.
BILLY BRAGG: Individual reissues of Life's a Riot with Spy vs. Spy, Brewing Up With Billy Bragg, Talking to the Taxman About Poetry, and a release that combines the Live & Dubious and Internationale are out today. You'll have to wait until March 7th if you want the box set.
GUNS N' ROSES: Stereogum is killing music with leaks from the long-lost, but soon-to-be-released Chinese Democracy project. Or maybe it's Axl Rose killing music, with a little help from ex-(and arguably current) Replacement Tommy Stinson. Worth checking out the dreadlocked and highly Botoxed-looking Axl.
ANIMAL COLLECTIVE tells the Boston Globe that they don't see themselves as part of the “freak folk” scene and gets an in-depth profile from the Montreal Mirror. You can stream tracks from the band's last two albums at MySpace for two different flavors of odd.
ROGUE WAVE: Zack Rogue tells San Diego CityBeat that he likes his pop fleeting, to leave the listener wanting more. Why am I not surprised he's a GbV fan? You can download “Publish My Love” and “10:1” guilt-free from Sub Pop.
SEEN YOUR VIDEO(S): Twofer Tuesday may be a cliche, but who can gripe about two seminal TV performances of of “(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction” by Devo on SNL in 1978 and the Rolling Stones on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1966. I think I still have my biohazard suit in storage…
RICHARD THOMPSON: The new five-disc set, The Life and Music of Richard Thompson, is excuse enough for NPR to repost an RT interview from 1994, along with streaming songs from an earlier performance, including covers of Squeeze's “Tempted” and Britney Spears' “Oops I Did It Again.”
BARRY and ROBIN GIBB reunited for a Miami charity concert, their first performance since the death of brother Maurice three years ago.
ROY ORBISON is getting a reissue campaign and a special exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. For the latter, Orbison's family will loan handwritten lyrics, rare records, stage clothing, business documents and photographs to the gallery display. There is also an online petition to put Roy on a postage stamp.
RICK RUBIN, the record producer who finds success by stripping down everyone from Jay-Z to Neil Diamond, is profiled in London's Guardian. His next project is rehabbing Metallica.
WILLIAM COWSILL, frontman for the band which inspired the TV series The Partridge Family, has died at 58. He had been suffering from emphysema, osteoporosis, and other ailments.
CHARLIZE THERON and KATE MOSS as lesbian lovers in a Dusty Springfield biopic? Cinematical is skeptical; so am I. But there have been worse ideas.
BRADGELINA: Pitt and Jennifer Aniston have concluded their 60 million dollar divorce settlement; she gets the mansion, he gets the production company.
FACTORY GIRL: The New York Times looks at the Edie Sedgwick biopic as it wraps shooting. Director George Hickenlooper: “In my eyes, she was a metaphor, a quintessential definition of being famous for 15 minutes. I could connect to it on a visceral level.” The script was written from sit-downs with her old friends and acquaintances.
HEATH LEDGER is taking a year off from acting and will send new mom Michelle Williams out to make the cash. A cynic might wonder whether playing a mumbling gay cowboy in Brokeback Mountain has brought a flood of job offers.
HIMBOS: With Paul Walker starring in Eight Below — the number one move in the US this week — film critic Dave White has his knives out for movie-man candy: “Paul Walker’s talents are best utilized in movies where he gets to drive cars really fast while looking smug and not talking, or where he gets to be underwater, not talking…”
TOM-KAT UPDATE: Cruise is considering suing Life + Style magazine for claiming the actor had ended his relationship with Holmes. At least that's what attorney Bert Fields claims… and champions. I would bet it doesn't happen.
RACHEL McADAMS and RYAN GOSLING were looking crazy delicious as they shared a rare PDA before McAdams hosted the 2006 Scientific and Technical Academy Awards, which honored a better airbag for stunt falls, computer-generated techniques to simulate cloth, and the Steadicam (full awards list). Although McAdams hasn't recently appeared in any effects-laden films — usually a prerequisite for the Sci-Tech gig — being a hottie is a much more important prerequisite and were all to happy to see her there.
SPIKE LEE says Hollywood doesn't care about black people — at least when it comes to executive positions. Moreover, “They'll make a movie with Denzel and Jamie and Eddie, but only because they can make money off them.” We can be thankful Spike is here to expose Hollywood as hypocritical capitalists.
WERNER HERZOG, Fresh from rescuing Joaquin Phoenix from a car wreck and stoically shrugging off being shot with an air rifle during a BBC interview, the Grizzly Man director is sent up by The Morning News.
GREY'S ANATOMY: Katherine Heigl (Dr. Izzie Stevens) and T.R. Knight (Dr. George O'Malley) got into a big wrestling water fight after work one day? George may have it bad on the show, but I feel much less sorry for T.R. The day they shot the shower dream sequence was probably a fun day, too.
BRITNEY SPEARS: Spenderline thinks his press can't get any worse, proving he's as dim as his image.
THE FRENCH HOTEL reportedly made a lesbian sex tape with former Playboy Playmate Nicole Lenz, according to the ever-reliable News of the World.
ISSAC MIZRAHI: The fashion designer turned red-carpet renegade has no plans to soften his act come Oscar night March 5. But face it — there's little chance he'll top his groping of Scarlett Johansson at the Golden Globes.
IRAQ: Bill Roggio has a round up of independent Iraqi Army ops that links to Jason Vansteenwyk's illustrated analysis of the accelerating handover to Iraqi forces in more populated areas. Roggio also notes the defense of counter-attacks around the city of Hit and has an interview with Colonel Stephen W. Davis, a regimental commander with info on ops in western Iraq. At Iraq the Model, Omar relays an unconfirmed report in al-Sabah that the US is having tribal sheikhs and community leaders pay insurgents to disarm. Michael J. Totten blogs from Erbil on Kurdish demands for federalism and control of Kirkuk.
CARTOON JIHAD: Protests against the Danish cartoons of Mohammed continued to sputter along in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nepal; the death toll in Nigeria rose to 28. Muslim computer-hacker gangs have launched a massive attack on Danish and Western Web sites as part of the mass protests, with more than 1,000 Danish, Israeli and European sites defaced or shut down by Islamic hackers in the last week. A Swedish Internet provider Spray self-censored the website of a feminist publisher that posted the 'toons. And on an ironic note, the Saudi Ministry of Media and Culture shut down a newspaper that printing some of the cartoons for the purpose of inciting the Saudi people.
PORT TURNOVER TURMOIL: A growing number of legislators and governors are questioning a deal that would allow a company ownd by the United Arab Emirates to operate six major US ports. The AP refers to it as “a Bush administration decision,” though it's actually a committee recommendation, which means Pres. Bush may yet block the deal. And any deal that gets Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) preferring the contract go to Halliburton is ripe for squashing. ABC News headlines a story “U.S. Port Deal: Xenophobia or Security Concern?” though the story contains no evidence of the former.Perhaps they realized how dumb they would look asking whether Sens. Schumer, Clinton and Boxer are xenophobic.
FAT CAT: Garfield has nothing on this nine-year-old, 33-pound cat in Qingdao, China. More pics at the link.
CAT POOP is having a devastating impact on endangered sea otters.
PENGUIN EGG UPDATE: Oscar and Kyala, who hatched their first egg since the theft of their baby Togo last year, have another unhatched egg. But the Daily Mail got permission to run a contest to name the chick that just hatched.
40-MILLION-YEAR-OLD GIANT PENGUIN fossil discovered by schoolchildren in New Zealand. Had the species of penguin survived to the present day it would have looked “many men in the eye,” the Waikato Times report said.
SUNSHINE THE MACAW foils a burglary in Williamsport, PA.
DOG'S SOFA is saved by an online petition.
