Karl THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:
MISSION OF BURMA: Roger Miller talks briefly to Billboard about the reunited band's upcoming album and documentary DVD. Clint Conley talks more about them in a nifty article about his visit to the “History of Punk Rock” class at Tufts. The band continues to roll out preview tracks from The Obliterati every three days.
FRIDAY TIMEWASTER: Can you handle the speed of the menacing mushroom? Play Sushi Samauri to find out.
TAPES 'N' TAPES — who are often compared to the Pixies and Pavement — signed a contract with XL Recordings that will see the band's disc The Loon released worldwide this summer. Music blogs sparked label interest that was further fueled by a string of live shows, including at SXSW. Four tracks from The Loon are on the band's MySpace page.
ISLANDS drummer J'aime Tambour tells Tuscon Weekly how the band emerged from the ashes of the Unicorns. You can stream a few from Return to the Sea via MySpace.
NEIL YOUNG has finished Living With War, which should be streaming from Young's website for a week starting today.
DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS are often asked about Lynyrd Skynyrd, the subject of their Southern Rock Opera. Jason Isbell reveals what members of Skynyrd thought about it.
MINUTEMEN: The acclaimed documentary, We Jam Econo, will be out as a double-DVD (on the dime?) June 27th.
SEEN YOUR VIDEO: Long out of print in the US, the first five Jesus and Mary Chain albums are being reissued by Rhino in DualDisc format in July! As videos are part of the reissues, let's celebrate with two early JAMC classics, “Never Understand” and “Some Candy Talking.”
MARGOT & THE NUCLEAR SO AND SO'S got a record deal from V2/Artemis and a spot on MTV News, but songwriter and lead singer Richard Edwards isn't sure wat it all means: “I really like traveling and playing, but it's really tiring. I think I'm more suited to being private. So I'm trying to be more rock & roll about things. We're starting to see more people at shows, and things have gotten busy, like grownups are busy. That's weird.” You can hear the band's off-kilter pop you-know-where.
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: NPR has an audio interview for We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions and a Springsteen-Seeger A/B Boss comparison.
DANIEL JOHNSON: The influential bipolar musician released a “best-of” this week as he prepares to play his first L.A. show in five years. Meanwhile, his music is being turned into a rock opera.
MY EX-BEST FRIEND is a music blog featuring the good, the bad and the ugly… but mostly the last two and mostly from the 70s. Styx, The Captain & Tennille, K.C. & The Sunshine Band (Ken King, beware of the England Dan & John Ford Coley)! Stream it all from the Hype Machine. The horror… the HORROR!
SMOOSH: The tween duo are sounding beyond their years with this new track, “Find A Way.”
KING BISCUIT TIME is over, as founder (and ex-Beta Band singer) Steve Mason signs off.
BRADGELINA: Jolie is the face of People magazine's “World's Most Beautiful People.” The magazine reportedly paid 700K for pics of the Pitt-Jolie doings in Namibia. Jolie says she's not quite eight months pregnant and that it has given her the giggles: “I get hysterical now, like. it'll go on for hours; it's really horrible. It's hormonal.” There's video of Jolie losing it and talking about educating kids in Africa at MSNBC. You can see Pitt in the teaser trailer for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford at Yahoo. And the couple plans to re-team onscreen for a movie version of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Let's hope the soundtrack is by Rush.
NOW SHOWING: This week's wide releases are the Robin Williams vehicle RV (32 percent Rotten on the Tomatometer), the spelling drama Akeelah and the Bee (85 percent Fresh), the gymnasts-bring-it-on comedy Stick It (25 percent Rotten) and the let's-worry-if-it's-too-soon-because-it's-not-Michael-Moore tragedy United 93 (92 percent Fresh). David Beamer, the father of passenger Todd Beamer, gives it a good review. Universal Studios, in true Hollywood style, has included a section in the movie's website titled, “Why Do They Hate America?
SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE is running “The Best of Saturday TV Funhouse” this week, featuring Robert Smigel's cartoons. The Ambiguously Gay Duo (voiced by Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell) will host. But you probably won't see “Conspiracy Theory Rock.”
THE CHRONIC(what)LES OF NARNIA: Walden Media announced plans for the future of the Chronicles of Narnia series of seven films.
DENISE and HEATHER and RICHIE and CHARLIE: In Touch Weekly claims Richards told Locklear to file for a divorce from Sambora. David Spade, recently caught canoodling with Locklear, told Us Weekly that Locklear was nursing the knife wounds in her back, though Us later pulled the item from its blog. Charlie Sheen had his “Denise” tattoo removed and is being sued by a woman claiming she is the inspiration for a “wacky neighbor and female stalker” character on his sitcom.
GEORGE CLOONEY has joined forces with conservative Sen. Sam Brownback and liberal Sen. Barack Obama to focus attention on genocide in Sudan's Darfur region. The Bush Admin. has succeeded in getting UN sanctions against four of the men accused of responsibility for atrocities in Darfur.
TOM-KAT UPDATE: Cruise's Mission: Impossible III co-star Michelle Monaghan called kissing him “an experience of a lifetime.” Yet he is now the subject of ridicule by a drag queen who tours college campuses. (2nd item) Of course, when you hear that Cruise likes to sing his own soundtrack while performing his movie stunts, you probably can make a career out of mocking him.
JESSICA SIMPSON is said to be “devastated” by a recent tell-all interview that future ex Nick Lachey, gave to Rolling Stone about their relationship, though she apparently doesn't deny what he says in it, just that he did it. The pair has had a secret dinner to hash it out.
ALEC BALDWIN has caused his Entertaining Mr. Sloane co-star to abandon the play. Jan Maxwell quit, declaring in an e-mail that the “bottom line was my physical safety, mental health and artistic integrity…”
ROSIE O'DONNELL is replacing the exiting Meredith Vieira on The View. Set your V-Chip to block the show — though you really should have done it a long time ago.
JESSICA ALBA turns 25 today. How better to celebrate than to point you to the pics of her near-wardrobe malfunction as she arrived to be named Style Icon of the Year by Us Weekly.
IRAQ: The sister of the new Vice-President was assassinated during Thursday's morning rush hour. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's highest-ranking Shiite Muslim cleric, called on militias to disarm, saying only government forces should be permitted to carry weapons on the streets. Sistani also urged Iraqis to form a government blind to religious and ethnic differences. Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch claims Iraq is moving away from civil war, with reports of sectarian violence dropping 60 percent since last week. Lynch added that while there were claims that more than 36,000 Iraqis had fled ethnic strife in cities such as Baghdad, Fallujah, Kut, Nasiriyah and Basra, the US military has not found evidence of this.
IRAN: The IAEA is set to rule that Iran has failed to to end its nuke enrichment program within the 30-day deadline set by the UN security council. The Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a threat: “The Americans should know that if they launch an assault against Islamic Iran, their interests in every possible part of the world will be harmed.” And Iran received North Korean surface-to-surface missiles that put European countries within firing range, according to Israel's military intelligence chief. The missiles are capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Yet Russia and China seem bent on doing nothing.
HURRICANE KATRINA: Though the headlines for a new Senate report focused on abolishing FEMA and blasting the federal response to the disaster, the report also faulted New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco for failing to protect sick and elderly people and others who could not evacuate the city on their own. Indeed, if you read the report yourself, you will find plenty on the state and local governmental failures to evacuate the poor and elderly from the city, and later from the Superdome. Had these jobs been done, the feds would not be looking nearly as bad.
IT'S ALL ABOUT THE OIL: Senators personally feel the pinch of high prices at the pump as they jump into their cars to drive to their offices across the street from the Capitol, or to the gas station on the next block for photo ops complaining about high gas prices.
MR WADDLE befriended Bill shortly after the 73-year-old was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and walks with him every day.
FIFTY THE PITBULL, who likes to dig in the backyard, turned up a possible World War II-era grenade.
A WIILDCAT is trying to join the Air Force.
SEAFOOD AND EAT IT: A public service announcement from Sen. John McCain. And there are few places more in need of some brain food than the US Senate.
PIGNAPPING, or did the potbellied oinker go for a joyride?
A 4.4-METER CROCODILE stole a man's chainsaw and chased him up a tree Down Under.
