BILLY BRAGG is touring in support of Volume One, a nine-disc compilation of his first four albums and bonus material, but he explains to Carl Wilson why he doesn't miss the Eighties.
NEW RELEASES this week include Ambulance Ltd's New English EP (“New English” itself is on MySpace); a reissue of The dB's Like This, which everyone should own (sorry, no audio, though I did find two odd post-dB's Holsapple demos on MySpace); the self-titled debut of Devo 2.0; a “best of” from Dumptruck; the Guillemots From the Cliffs EP (which you can — and should — stream in its entirety from AOL Music); and the US release of Hard-Fi's Stars of CCTV (also streaming in its entirety from AOL Music this week).
AEROSMITH: A mystery illness plaguing Steven Tyler has forced the band to cancel a string of dates on its current North American tour.
SEX PISTOLS guitarist Steve Jones wants more than holidays in the sun, pondering a move to Hawaii to combat what he believes is Seasonal Affective Disorder.
ARETHA FRANKLIN is happy to be a “big woman” who loves her food. But she should have as much concern for her health as starlets on the Skeletor diet.
SEEN YOUR VIDEO: News that Go-Gos singer Belinda Carlisle is producing a film based on her life and is eyeing Jessica Alba to play her produced a torrent of vintage Go-Gos gossip at ONTD. So Twofer Tuesday brings you a live version of “We Got The Beat” from Britain's Old Grey Whistle Test and the classic video of “Our Lips Are Sealed,” with a bonus video of the other version of “Lips” by Fun Boy Three.
ISOBEL CAMPBELL tends to get asked the same questions about her new Ballad of the Broken Seas, but Synthesis discovers that she has another album finished that may drop before the end of the year. Stream her at MySpace.
VINYL LP sales hover around half of 1 percent of all recorded music sales in this country, but a surprisingly broad audience — college students, club DJ’s and aging audiophiles — refuse to let the medium die, due to its: sound quality, availability, aesthetics and nostalgia.
ARCTIC MONKEYS: Many stories have been written about the band as a case study of Internet marketing, but Simon Gavin of Polydor Records wisely notes: “If it were just about the Internet, there would be 600,000 bands out there that would have been signed by now, and they're not.”
JAMES HUNTER, who Van Morrison calls “one of the best voices, and best kept secrets, in British R'n'B and soul,” gets profiled in the Independent. Stream him from MySpace.
BILL WYMAN talks about becoming a writer, archeologist, restaurateur, bandleader and better father after leaving the Rolling Stones and a disastrous marriage to a 15-year-old girl. He hasn't left the Stones entirely, though; he's still the band's archivist, with a collection worth millions.
PETE DOHERTY-KATE MOSS UPDATE: The ever-authoritative News of the World reports on recurring rumors that the supposedly sober supermodel has rekindled her romance with the troubled singer. She is said to have warned the troubled singer she'll leave him if he touches drugs again — as if that will change anything. It's a good thing that Moss belives in Karma, as it seems like it's going to come due if she goes back to Doherty.
CAROLINA PANTHERS CHEERLEADERS UPDATE: Former Carolina Panthers cheerleader Victoria Renee Thomas (a/k/a “the hotter one”) avoided jail by pleading no contest to misdemeanor charges of battery and unlawful display of a license (link to courtroom video here). A police report said witnesses reported that Thomas and another member of the TopCats cheerleading squad, Angela Keathley, appeared to be having sex in the bathroom stall before getting in a fight with patrons and getting arrested Nov. 6. Thomas' attorney again denied that the cheerleaders were having sex in the stall. And Bill Clinton would totally back that statement.
THE SOPRANOS seemingly dented Desperate Housewives' 18-49 demographic Sunday night, as the ABC show appears to have pulled in its smallest audience since December 2004.
SIENNA MILLER and HAYDEN CHRISTENSEN caught canoodling again, this time by a photographer.
BRADGELINA: InTouch has Jolie wanting to adopt more kids before she gives birth, while the new wedding rumor has them getting hitched next week on a boat in Lake Como, near George Clooney's villa. Rosario Dawson claims that that director Robert Rodriguez wants Angelina Jolie to star in Sin City 2 and is delaying production to accommodate her pregnancy. And why not? Jolie does look like a dame to kill for…
MICHAEL DOUGLAS opines on Bradgelina and other celeb couples in the new issue of GQ: “I don't know about Brad Pitt,” says Douglas, “leaving that beautiful woman (Jennifer Aniston) to go hold orphans for Angelina (Jolie). I mean how long is that going to last?” It's an odd comment coming from someone who dumped his wife and married Catherine Zeta-Jones five months later, but maybe all that plastic surgery has put too much pressure on his brain.
JERRY HALL believes plastic surgery patients suffer from mental illness and should be given therapy instead. Has she met Michael Douglas?
ISSAC HAYES has quit as “Chef” on South Park, saying he can no longer stomach its take on religion. “South Park co-creator Matt Stone responded sharply in an interview with The Associated Press Monday, saying, “This is 100 percent having to do with his faith of Scientology… He has no problem — and he's cashed plenty of checks — with our show making fun of Christians.” Perhaps Stone will ask to use the inevitable song parody.
TOM-KAT UPDATE: Cruise and Holmes smiled for the cameras on their arrival for and 13-year-old daughter Isabella Cruise's basketball game Sunday, but they are rumored to have gotten into a shouting match at the game itself.
BRITNEY SPEARS has reportedly put Spenderline on a budget, as a source at the Four Seasons Hotel in Maui tells Page Six that the two are still not getting along.
SCARLETT JOHANSSON has a former boyfriend who thinks she missed out by choosing her career over him. Which probably explains the “former” part.
V FOR VENDETTA: The New York Times has more on creator Alan Moore's disenchantment with Hoolywood and mainstream comics, which he admits is much like that of a selfish child. Nevertheless, Newsweek's Jeff Giles writes that “the movie plays like a clumsy assault on post-9/11 paranoia,” so maybe Moore has a point, though the Tomatometer currently reads 77 percent Fresh.
HELL'S ANGELS are suing Walt Disney Co. for infringing on their trademark name and logo in an upcoming movie. They are unquestionably tough, but it takes cojones to mess with The Mouse.
GEORGE CLOONEY is upset with Democrats who voted to authorize force against Iraq: “In 2003, a lot of us were saying, where is the link between Saddam and bin Laden? What does Iraq have to do with 9/11? We knew it was bulls–t. Which is why it drives me crazy to hear all these Democrats saying, 'We were misled.' It makes me want to shout, 'F— you, you weren't misled. You were afraid of being called unpatriotic.'” Clooney is certainly correct to note that they weren't misled. However, it's a matter of record that Bush and Cheney did not accuse Saddam of aiding the 9/11 attacks. As for links between Saddam and al Qaeda, a 2003 CIA report was quoted in the Senate Intell Cmte report on prewar intell as follows (p. 329): “Regarding the Iraq-al Qaeda relationship, reporting from sources of varying reliability points to… incidents of training… (ellipses in original) The most disturbing aspect of the relationship is the dozen or so reports of varying reliability mentioning the involvement of Iraq or Iraqi nationals in al Qaeda's efforts to obtain CBW training.” The report further quotes public testimony by CIA Director Tenet that Iraq trained al Qaeda in document forgery and bomb-making, and possibly in poisons and gases (one source for this last claim was thought to be fabricatng by DIA and later recanted). There was plenty of bad intell before the invasion, but Congress was not misled about what it said and Clooney cannot claim the intell — good and bad — did not exist.
IRAQ: 60 Minutes figured out that and US and Iraqi forces made Tal Afar a much better place if you watch the before-and-after video, yet the show implicitly criticizes US concern for civilian casualties that let some terrorists escape. Had the US not shown that concern, the piece would have been about how heavy-handed US tactics killed innocents and made the locals angry. At ITM, Mohammed looks at good and bad news on the political and security fronts in Baghdada. Bill Roggio analyzes Muqtada al-Sadr's reaction to the Sadr City bombings.
THE DOGS OF WAR: With a modified ballistic vest, a Screaming Eagle combat patch and a Combat Action Badge, Zeko, an explosive detection dog, runs an obstacle course as part of his daily training.
WORLD'S UGLIEST DOG: With Sam's recent death, Victoria the Italian Greyhound takes the title at San Diego's 11th annual Ugly Dog Contest. Picture and video at the link, though she's not nearly as ugly as Sam was.
DOGS are buying wedding outfits in Birmingham (UK). And not a moment too soon, as dog condoms are recalled, due not only to the failure rate, but also as a choking hazard.
BOB THE BUTTERFLY UPDATE: Sadly, Bob has died of loneliness, even as a dozen Painted Lady caterpillars, meant to be Bob's companions, are expected to hatch from cocoons in a few days.
A FRESHWATER CROC turned up in a Sydney swimming pool. A saltwater croc was discovered in a pond a few miles away, though Sydney is too cold during winter to sustain crocodiles.
TWITCHERS IN A FLAP OVER ELUSIVE PECKER: Best ivory-billed woodpecker headline ever for a story suggesting that the reported rediscovery of an apparently “extinct” species may be… premature.
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