Karl 
RADIO BIRDMAN: The long-defunct legendary Aussie-punk outfit is planning their first ever US tour to support their upcoming reunion LP, due in August. You can stream old and new tracks via MySpace. You can see 'em play “New Race” and cover “TV Eye” (which figured in yesterday's round-up) on YouTube.
NEW RELEASES: Albums from Cheap Trick, Smoosh, Sound Team, the New Cars and Depeche Mode (reissue) are streaming in full from AOL Music. BTW, Sound Team has gotten good blog buzz, so you may want to check them out in particular. Kinda Walkmen-ish. Portastatic releases Who Loves The Sun. Camera Obscura (featured here yesterday) has a US release for Let's Get Out of This Country Ladyhawk, recorded a self-titled LP with help from Labelmate Black Mountain (but more Neil Young, The Band and Foo Fighters than Black Sabbath). Oakley Hall, which melds folk, psychedelia, country and grunge, releases Gypsum Strings. Be Your Own Pet gets its abrasive art-punk out on a self-titled release, courtesy of Thurston Moore's label. It's getting generally favorable reviews at Metacritic. The Robot Ate Me lives up to its “experimental” tag on Good World, if the leaked tracks are an indication.
DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS co-frontman Patterson Hood lists “Music You Should Hear” for Amazon, but (unusually for the Amazon lists) sticks to tracks over albums.
WOODSTOCK: The little Catskills town of Bethel is getting a 70 million dollar, 1,700-acre arts center where Max Yasgur's farm used to be.
BLUE MONDAY: Sure, it's Tuesday, but yesterday, at MKOB, Dodge got busy compiling the New Order classic. You can stream about three dozen versions via the Hype Machine.
JOSH RITTER talks to the San Jose Mercury News about how hearing Johnny Cash singing Bob Dylan changed his life, and to Harp about learning patience. You can stream and download several tracks via MySpace.
KICK OUT THE JAMS (brothers and sisters): This John Sinclair produced clip of the MC5 playing “Kick Out The Jams” makes up in energy what it lost in the transfer to YouTube. And it's Twofer Tuesday, so here's a later TV performance of “American Ruse.” BONUS: Let's make it a double twofer with clips from Detroit public access TV of “Ramblin' Rose” and “KOTJ.”
MISSION OF BURMA: PopMatters interviews Clint Conley about lightening up (though not always musically) and links you to Roger Miller's MySpace blog. The band's new album, The Obliterati, is getting universal acclaim at Metacritic.
SMASHING PUMPKINS: It looks like Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlain will be joined by Eric Avery (ex-Jane's Addiction) on bass.
LEONARD COHEN talks to Bloomberg News about his newly-published volume of poetry and being a bad Buddhist monk.
VAN MORRISON did not make the NME.com poll of the 100 Greatest Albums of All Time!? The Belfast Telegraph has the whole list.
BRIGHT EYES: Conor Oberst doesn't get the frequent Bob Dylan comparison: “It just doesn't really make a lot of sense to me other than I guess we both play guitar and sing in English.” I'll bet Dylan agrees.
HEATHER MILLS McCARTNEY did some softcore — yet kinky — porn when she was a model. NTTAWWT. Indeed, would so many have been slagging her as the “new Yoko” had they known about this? Anyway, London's Sun has some of the pictures, though they've cropped them because it's a “family newspaper.” Sorry, should have warned you not to be drinking anything.
BRADGELINA have had the photos of their baby taken at a private photo shoot, with profits to go to an as-yet unnamed charity.
BRITNEY SPEARS has started preliminary divorce proceedings against Spenderline? Hey, if it's in the News of the World, it must be true.
HUGH GRANT: Secretly engaged? Britain's Daily Mail claims that news has been kept under wraps for six months.
COLIN FARRELL: Secretly married? Seems even less likely than the Hugh Grant story.
JESSICA SIMPSON is reportedly undergoing tests to confirm whether she has an ulcer. Now that's believable.
ASHLEE SIMPSON is the type of genius who gets a nose job and a fat lip job, then shoots a boxing-themed video.
TOM-KAT UPDATE: Cruise has pushed the baby toys in the corner to subject the infant to an “enhanced learning” program, according to Life & Style Weekly.
DENISE & HEATHER & RICHIE & CHARLIE & DAVID: Denise Richards and David Spade were snapped on the beach with Heather's daughter Ava. Just Jared has 'em, but be warned you will be seeing David Spade in beachwear.
KATIE COURIC has been the subject of many tributes as she left the Today show for the CBS Evening News. Elmo from Sesame Street was having none of it.
LINDSAY LOHAN has mended fences with the French Hotel and reportedly plans to work only with big-name directors after having worked on Robert Altman’s A Prairie Home Companion.
KEIRA KNIGHTLEY has said she regrets not having lived a little more and enjoyed her youth before finding fame: “If you're seen falling out of a nightclub, or with bad skin, then you're ripped apart. The idea of holding up a 21-year-old as a role model is completely idiotic. It's like you've got to be perfect.” She's apparently gotten over it, if her recent evening with a tequila bottle and her bragging about her “potty mouth” and drinking about half a bottle of wine a night is any indication.
EDU-BLOGGING: As is often the case, I am tardy in noting that the 69th Carnival of Education is online.
IRAQ IN THE MEDIA: The New York Times runs a story about Saddam's mass graves, noting that Raid Juhi, chief investigative judge for the Iraqi court now trying Saddam, says the court had documentary evidence, and statements from witnesses, showing that at least 100,000 Shiites, and possibly 180,000, died in the 1991 repression. The tribunal will then hear a second case, involving accusations that 50,000 Kurds were killed in what is called the Anfal offensive, which reached its peak in 1988. The NYT balanced this article with a piece by David Carr featuring complaints that the press should be running more pictures of dead US soldiers. At OpinionJournal, James Taranto chronicles Time magazine's Andrew Sullivan on the Ishaqi incident, particularly his reluctance to accept that not every shooting is an atrocity.
TERROR BUST IN CANADA: The Counterterrorism Blog has some interesting stuff raising the question of whether one of the world’s largest nuclear generating facilities was a target.
CLONED MULES: Idaho Gem and Idaho Star won their qualifying heats Saturday the 20th annual Winnemucca Mule Races, Show & Draft Horse Challenge, but came in third and seventh in the eight-way race Sunday. Nevertheless, the winner's owner said that the clones have a bright future in professional mule racing.
A JAPANESE COW tried to bolt to freedom en route to the slaughterhouse. She died in the attempt, but not before attacking a rendering plant worker who was trying to recapture the animal.
A LIONESS in Kiev probably did not understand the man who crept into her cage shouting that God would keep him safe.
DOG VISITATION RIGHTS: A court in Madrid, Spain denied a man's request to make unannounced visits at his ex-wife's house to see a dog, saying such an arrangement would be like “pie in the sky.”
SNAKE ON A PLANE: Monty Coles was 3,000 feet in the air when he discovered a stowaway peeking out at him from the plane's instrument panel: a 4 1/2-foot snake. Now that's viral marketing.
