Karl 
ISLANDS plays a “Concert à emporter” for La Blogoteque. The band gathers on a Paris street corner for a downtempo version of “Don't Call Me Whitney, Bobby” and “Volcanoes.” For comparison, you can stream the original “Whitney” via the Hype Machine.
NEW RELEASES: Albums from Bob Dylan Ray LaMontagne, Pete Yorn, Stereolab (a compilation), Sam Moore (from Sam & Dave), The Dirty Dozen Brass Band (a Hurricane Katrina-inspired, cameo-studded remake of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On), the Beach Boys (the 40th anniversary edition of Pet Sounds) and… Jessica Simpson are streaming in full from AOL this week. Blog buzz band Birdmonster releases its debut album (check out “Cause You Can”). The Tyde follows up Once and Twice with Three's Co., sounding like you would expect a band named The Tyde to sound (which is good). The new M Ward is still streaming from Merge Records. Audioslave has a new single. BONUS: You can download the next two Pet Sounds podcasts, covering “Wouldn't It Be Nice” and “You Still Believe In Me.” DOUBLE BONUS: At Chromewaves, Frank is killing music with M Ward, Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes) & Jim James (My Morning Jacket) covering Dylan's “Girl From The North Country.”
…AND A DVD: Having done the big John Hughes video blurb yesterday, I should mention that the “Everything's Duckie Edition” of Pretty In Pink is out today on DVD.
BEN FOLDS talks to the Sydney Morning Herald about releasing three internet-only EPs from 2003-04 as one CD next month, touring with the Sydney Symphony, his next new LP and working on the soundtrack of the animated Over the Hedge: “I can tell you, it was no fun, but it paid really well and I think everyone can understand that.”
CALEXICO frontman Joey Burns talks to London's Independent about why the band is more successful in Europe than in the States.
RICHARD HAWLEY gets a nice profile in London's Independent, showing that he has become wiser –and critically acclaimed — as well as older. He has become a master of what Greil Marcus would call “3 a.m. music” — striking stuff that would fit nicely in with Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Dusty In Memphis, and so on. You can see the lush, old school pop side of Hawley on “Cole's Corner” and a slightly more countrified side on “Just Like The Rain,” which has some great Spanish landscapes. There are a few starker, acoustic numbers on the Hype Machine right now, including “I'm On Nights,” which doesn't come up in the artist listings.
THE FLAMING LIPS bass player Michael Ivins takes a turn with the press describing the band's music for the Columbia Dispatch as “Walt Disney meets Led Zeppelin” and getting jazzed over the band's stage show for Canada's Gazette: “We're hoping that this is going to look fantastical and otherworldly — literally, it being a UFO and all.”
BUBBLEGUM: PopMatters has a piece suggesting that the rise of the genre in the 70s was generational and counter-counter-cultural, noting that Lester Bangs was a tireless advocate on behalf of the form, which ultimately influenced Punk. Plus, there's an embedded video of The Archies.
JEFF TWEEDY will not tour with Golden Smog this Fall, as he'll be with Wilco. But he is releasing a solo DVD in October. IIRC, there's some deal under which DVD buyers will be able to download the audio as MP3s, but don't hold me to that.
A BEATLES WEBCAM FOILS CRIME: A man in Dallas phoned the Merseyside police to report a robbery he saw while using a webcam to look at the legendary Cavern Club in Liverpool.
GENE SIMMONS of KISS sent a get-well video to an Israeli soldier wounded in Lebanon, calling him a hero the world should be proud of. Simmons was born Haim Witz in Haifa in 1949, emigrating to the US at the age of eight with his mother, a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp.
TOM-KAT UPDATE: People magazine reports that the Aussies have falsely accused Cruise of a sexist remark. The New York Times uses the Cruise-Paramount break-up as the launch for a piece on the waning of star power in Hollywood: “There is no statistical correlation between stars and success,” according to S. Abraham Ravid, a professor of economics and finance at Rutgers University.
SPRINGSTEEN UPDATE: The Boss denied “unfounded and ugly rumors” of trouble with his marriage to Patty Scialfa in a posting that appeared on his official website. Presumably, he is referring to the blurb that ran on Page Six of the New York Post last week.
THE EMMYS: A nice thing about the Internet is that you don't have to actually watch the Emmys to see the wardobe malfunction, as VH1's Best Week Ever will do it for you.
ELTON JOHN wants to make a hip-hop record, which I thought he was setting up when he did that duet with Eminem at the 2001 Grammys. Bernie Taupin better start brushing up on the Urban Dictionary.
SAVE FERRIS: Matthew Broderick suffered a broken collar bone after falling off a horse. Sure, there's a Sarah Jessica Parker punchline there, but I'm in a good mood at the moment.
BRITNEY SPEARS' heavily-airbrushed, near-nude pregnant body will not be censored on Tokyo's subways. The pop tart is due to give birth on Halloween, which seems exactly right.
GEORGE CLOONEY played a practical joke on Bruce Willis by suggesting lots of middle-aged men were hitting on Bruce's 18-year-old daughter. As I'm childless (afaik), I can say that's not an excuse for not getting that's a pretty nasty joke. And I say that having mocked Willis over that Lindsay Lohan rumor.
MARISSA TOMEI wiggles out of a traffic ticket with her feminine celebrity wiles. And presumably did not go into a Mel Gibson-esque rant.
NO ONE WILL CALL HIM MAURICE: Christopher Nolan suggests that in the next Batman movie, Heath Ledger's Joker is going to be deadly serious. Which, imho, is a very good thing.
THE S.S. MINNOW, famous for its three-hour tour,” can be yours for about 90K. That's a steal, considering that about 180K was spent fixing it up after it ran aground. No, really, it did. (Thanks, Ken!)
SADDAM HUSSEIN has been forced to watch himself portrayed as Satan's gay lover in South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, according to South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
IRAQ in the MEDIA: The AP lede: “A suicide car bombing and clashes between Shiite militia and Iraqi security forces left at least 50 people dead Monday in a brutal contradiction of the prime minister's claim that bloodshed was decreasing.” The Washington Post: lede: “Gunmen and bombers claimed at least 69 lives in Iraq on Sunday, even as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki repeated the assertions of Iraqi and U.S. leaders that violence was easing from a wartime high set earlier this summer.” However, the L.A. Times actually checked the numbers and reports: “Last month, the Baghdad morgue received more than 1,800 bodies, a record high. This month, the morgue is on track to receive less than a quarter of that.” Moreover, AFP managed to quote from Maj. Gen. Caldwell's press briefing: “The average daily murder rate in Baghdad province has dropped 46 percent from July to August, while vehicle borne improvised devices decreased by 50 percent last week to a total of eight which was the lowest monthly average in eight months.” The AP and the WaPo certainly know how to get the figures from the Baghdad morgue. Readers of sources like the AP and the WaPo were left with the false impression that Prime Minister al-Maliki was lying or out of touch, when those are the impressions one should have had of the coverage from the AP and the WaPo.
IRAQ in the MEDIA: The Turkish Press reported on the arrest of a militant suspected of orchestrating some of the most horrific bomb attacks in Iraq. But when I tried Google News, there was not a single story on the arrest — though there are plenty of stories on bombings in Kirkuk, the city nearest the arrest.
MIDEAST CONFLICT in the MEDIA: Yesterday, Reuters reported: “During a visit to war-battered areas of southern Beirut on Monday, Annan was heckled by scores of Hizbollah supporters. He was forced to cut short the visit and was driven away.” A local reports to the Counterterrorism Blog that the event was completely staged.
SAM the LABRADOR has adopted Bluebell the Fawn. Sam even handles the bottle feeding in a pic at the link.
DOGS generally do not excel at Driver's Ed.
FAKE FOWL save a tourist town from seabird-killing seals. It's like the animal version of Blazing Saddles.
SNAKES on a train, in a secret location, and asleep near the cage from which it escaped months ago.
SERPENTES on a SHIPPE, courtesy of Geoffrey Chaucer's blog. WARNING: Spoylerez!
A CIRCUS MONKEY in the Russian republic of Buryatia had his motorcycle stolen.
